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VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Pathways to Partnership DIF in Colorado
11/04/2024
VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Pathways to Partnership DIF in Colorado
Join us for the latest episode of the Manager Minute podcast, where host Carol Pankow sits down with the incredible Serina Gilbert, Cheryl Carver, and Peter Pike from Colorado's Pathways to Partnership DIF Grant! In this episode, they dive into their groundbreaking Pathways to Partnership project, a collaborative initiative designed to enhance outcomes for children and youth with disabilities. Discover how they're embedding VR counselors in schools, launching the innovative “Map My Transition” app, and partnering with Centers for Independent Living to create a brighter future. Tune in as the team shares valuable insights, learning experiences they've faced, and what’s on the horizon for the grant’s second year. Don’t miss this inspiring conversation about transforming lives through partnership and innovation! {Music} Serina: To support the families that are surrounding these young adults with disabilities, as well, to help them gain the skills to be able to help those students move into competitive, integrated employment. Peter: The centers for Independent Living are required to deliver core services in one core service is supporting young adults transitioning into high school. Cheryl: We will actually incorporate those components of the six core skill sets and the age ranges, along with all of those local partners into map my transition. Serina: Gosh, there's so many things we're doing. Intro Voice: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow. Carol: Well, welcome to the manager minute. Joining me in the studio today are the Tri-Force from Colorado, Serina Gilbert, Cheryl Carver, and Peter Pike, Co-project, directors for Colorado Partnerships for Partnership DIF Grant. So how are things going for you, Serina? Serina: I'm doing fantastic. I like that word Tri-Force. It feels really, really fancy. It's October here and it's like almost 80 degrees, so I'm happy. Carol: Ahh, good for you. You know what? In fact, I had to use a little ChatGPT because I said, well, how could I describe a fearsome threesome? And they gave me all these different things. And I went, I'm going to go Tri-Force. I really liked it. Serina: So don't tell people your AI secrets. You came up with that all on your own. you did it. Carol: I know, I know, how about you, Cheryl? You are old hat at this. I got to talk to you a couple years ago, which was super fun. So Cheryl's like the podcast queen now. She's on this twice. Cheryl: I'm with Serina, though. I liked that word too. I thought it was empowering. I think this is awesome. We're going to have to use that again. Things are going well. Always busy though, you know, and the DIF grant has added to that, but in an awesome way in terms of growing, expanding and learning. So we're excited to be here today. Carol: Awesome. And Peter, welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited you are on. How are you doing? Peter: Well, I got to tell you, I'm a little nervous. This is my first time joining a podcast, so I'm not sure how it's going to go, but I appreciate the opportunity. And I'm coming off of two big meetings today, one with the Centers for Independent Living, where we get to get caught up on priority topics, and of course, our Disability Innovation team meeting. We meet on a regular basis. So the timing is great. Carol: Good. Well, you're all bringing the energy. So that's great. So I just want to do a little quick refresher for our listeners so they understand what the earth we're talking about. So I have been doing different series on the Disability Innovation Fund grants. And this particular grant has to do with the Pathways to Partnership grant that was funded by RSA, and it supports projects aimed at fostering deeper collaboration between agencies. Turning these collaborations into true partnerships, and the projects aim to enhance service delivery by piloting cohesive models that better manage resources, while coordinating efforts to improve outcomes for children and youth with disabilities and their support systems, ultimately facilitating smoother transitions. And Colorado is wrapping up the first year of the grants. So let's dive in and see how things are progressing. All right. So let's get into it Serina, I'm going to kick off with you first. Could you just start by telling our listeners a little bit about yourself and how you got involved in VR? Serina: Sure. So you already know my name is Serina Gilbert, and I'm currently a program manager under our youth services team with the Division of Voc Rehab here in Colorado. I actually got involved with VR because I was a recipient of VR services way back when, when I was in college, and while I was receiving services, I kind of flipped the script around, I was like, well, what do you do? This looks fun. Like, I want to learn this. So I got my master's and a few years later, here I am. So I've always enjoyed working with youth. That's always been my passion and I'm super excited to even be in this role. Carol: Awesome. So, Peter, what's your journey to get to VR? Tell us a little bit about you. Peter: Well, that's a great question. My name is Peter Pike and I work for what's called the Colorado Office of Independent Living Services, which is part of the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation. And I got to tell you, for a couple decades, I actually worked outside of the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation as a vendor and as like a community partner on different grants. And a few years back, Colorado established this Office of Independent Living Services, dedicated to working with nonprofits called the Centers for Independent Living. That's how I got involved with the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, and I'm also a person with a Non-visible disability. And so this fits very nicely in terms of my philosophy and being part of the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation. Carol: I love that because you bring a whole other perspective. Having come from that vendor field. So you've got some things going on that can contribute greatly to the agency and this project for sure. And Cheryl, last but not least, you know, it's been two years, but let's tell our listeners again a little bit about you and your journey into VR. Cheryl: Well, mine is not as direct as Peter's or Serina. Again, my name is Cheryl Carver. I am the second program manager we have here in the state of Colorado under Voc Rehab for our youth services and transition programming. So Serina and I work very closely together. I kind of fell into this by accident, but I have always been in healthcare related fields. I've worked for the independent living centers. I've also worked in assisted living and I worked as a vendor as well with DVR in the mental health sector. After that, I really lucked out and was able to apply for a position. That was 24 years ago and I joined the youth services team 20 years ago, so it's been an indirect path, but once I found my niche, I have loved growing in this position with youth services at the administrative level. Carol: I love it, you know, no matter which way, if you come in a direct way or lots of people, it's kind of a long and winding road to get into VR. Whatever way you get here, we love the energy you all are bringing, and we think it's great because people are bringing all kinds of different perspectives to the work now. I was super excited about your project when I was reading through RSA's website and looking at the little synopsis, and I'm like, oh, I got to grab the Colorado people first. You're the first in my group on this particular topic, and I understand that your project has multiple components. Can you give our listeners a little overview of the project and what you aim to accomplish? And I think, Serina, you were going to kind of give us the big picture to start out with. Serina: Yes, it's a very big picture. So I'm sorry. We dreamed really big when we saw this grant posting last spring. We saw a lot of opportunity in our state to maybe help build some capacity and some connectedness throughout the state. So one piece of it is we started out by deciding to build what we're calling interdisciplinary teams. And what that is, is traditionally in Colorado, we don't usually have DVR counselors housed specifically in the school districts. We do have counselors that liaison with the district, but they are not like actually full time there. So we actually just did some hiring, and we'll have a couple of counselors starting in the next few weeks that will be housed directly in the local school districts and embedded with the school transition teams to make sure that services are able to be delivered to the students with disabilities within those districts. Another super exciting part that coincides with that is that there'll be services provided by the Centers for Independent Living, which Peter will talk a little bit more about as well, to make sure that there's a dedicated service provider to be able to help support those teams. And one really big, huge thing that we're really excited about is what's going to be called Map My Transition. And we jokingly call this the You are Here Website. So it's going to be a website and iOS app and an Android app designed for students, their families, educators and service providers and other community agencies within the state of Colorado. And the way that it'll work is we'll start from the student perspective, as the student will create an account on the site, they'll be asked a few questions about where they reside and what their long and short term goals are, and then they'll be presented with customized resources and videos that are specific to what their needs are, and specifically, how to get connected with the agencies that can support them. The super exciting part about that is that that also allows kind of that turnover resistant piece of things, because The educators and the service providers can also see that same list of community providers that are specific to their geographic region. So if somebody leaves a position, the next person can come into that position and get connected on this website and instantly know who their community partners are within their geographic area to connect with. Carol: I love that app idea though. Serina: I'm so excited about it. Carol: Well, you know, when you talk about kids like students, man, they're not. Don't email them. They're not out looking on the internet. serina: No. Carol: like their phone is their life. Like they need everything to be direct connect that way. That's how they're going to, you're very smart to go that route. Serina: Yeah. So we're super excited. Also gosh, there's so many things we're doing also to support the students. We are partnering with our family led organizations to support the families that are surrounding these young adults with disabilities, as well, to help them gain the skills to be able to help those students move into competitive, integrated employment. But then that's not all, I feel like a game show host. Carol: Do tell more. Serina: I know, I know. I'll have Cheryl talk a little bit about our interagency transition building as well, because that Map My Transition is also going to support that aspect of what we're doing here in Colorado. Carol: I think that's cue to you, Cheryl. Cheryl: I was just going to say, is that my cue? so five years ago, Colorado began an initiative through the National Assistance Center on Transition Coalition, and we began looking around the state to identify where our own gaps and weaknesses were as it pertains to interagency coordination teams. What we discovered were several of the components that Serina has mentioned that we hope to build into Map My Transition. Things like we were having trouble sustaining interagency transition teams, and that was due in large part because of turnover and staff. When interagency transition teams were coming together locally, they placed those responsibilities with an individual instead of their position. And as a result of that, once that person left, there was nobody to continue on with the work. And these interagency transition teams just eventually dissolved. Additionally, they really didn't have any goals that kept them together and gave them a reason for continuing to come together. So we wanted to help the local partners rediscover their interagency transition teams, identify tools that would help bring them together and give them an actual purpose. As a result of that work, what we created was a workbook for all partners that come to the table locally in these interagency transition team efforts, every partner at that table is required to identify within six core skill set areas that we've put together an age range, what services they actually provide. That way, when education is working on developing an IEP, an Individualized Education Program, or other entities sitting around the table like the division of Voc Rehab, developing their individualized plans for employment, we can look and see what areas does this student need to grow in, depending upon their age and their skill gap. With that, then we can pick and choose and strategically work together towards the same goals with that student. So we actually have coordinated student outcomes. We are not duplicating services. The challenge we faced was that the workbook, because we didn't have any backing to help us complete this, is overwhelming and it's difficult to use. And as a result of that, again, this is where Map My Transition comes in. We will actually incorporate those components of the six core skill sets and the age ranges, along with all of those local partners into Map My Transition so it will be easier for all users, whether it is the youth themselves or a family member, or any one of the number of entities that sit around an interagency transition table to be able to go in and see, we know what the students ultimate goals are, and these are the areas we are working on. So let's take a look at and consider what are the choices for the service providers. So I am also extremely excited about Map My Transition, because I think it is going to be fabulous in terms of what we are envisioning to create, as well as to help interagency transition teams accomplish that coordinated student outcome. Carol: I think that is going to be super replicable across the country, like the work you guys are putting into that, because I know that's one of the things with the DIF grant, they're hoping that some of the things you all create are going to help other states out there. And that particular piece, I think that's fascinating. I think that sounds really cool. Cheryl: I agree. So with that, we'll take it to the next level, if you will, and continue to enhance, we hope at least. What else would do you want me to kick it back to you, Serina, for apprenticeships or family member training? Serina: I forgot about our apprenticeship piece because we're just doing so many things. We shot for the moon, right? Carol: Yes, yes you did. There's like, 20 moving parts on this thing. I'm like, wow. Serina: Cheryl is correct. One other aspect was to make sure that we're connecting young adults with apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship opportunities. So we are partnering with our apprenticeship representatives here in Colorado within the Department of Labor and Employment, called Apprenticeship Colorado, and they will be helping the counselors and the interagency teams learn about how to connect with employers for apprenticeships and actually be developing apprenticeships in the areas that we're serving. And then they're also going to create training for us to put on Map My Transition for future reference, but also train our staff on it. I did talk a little bit about the family led organizations in the training, but what we didn't talk a lot about was the Centers for Independent Living Partnerships, and I'd love for Peter to be able to cover that a little bit for us. Carol: Peter, I know you're passionate about those CILs for sure. Peter: Yeah, I always love the opportunity to talk about the Centers for Independent Living. And maybe a starting point is to just briefly talk about what is the Center for Independent Living, right? These are nonprofit organizations that actually exist in every state of the Union. And so in Colorado, we have nine centers for independent living that are focused on helping people with disabilities of all ages, any disability type, living as independently as they can. And I want to be clear, that doesn't mean they are residential facilities. These non-profits are not residential facilities. They are non-profits that we have contracts with to support people living independently in the community, and they are a key partner. One of the great things about this grant is there was a requirement that Centers for Independent Living be part of this grant. And so with that, it really accentuates some of the strengths that they have. There are two things that come to mind. Number one is the Centers for Independent Living provide peer support services. What that means is that these organizations have over 50% people with disabilities from the board of directors, all the way down to their entry level staff. And that is key because an emphasis of this program is peer support services. So in their work for this grant, that's what they're going to be doing, is working with young adults in high school, transitioning out of high school to Address and navigate some of the adult issues that come up, whether that be employment, post-secondary education and otherwise. So that's an important strength. The second strength that I believe the Centers for Independent Living offer is that this service system you don't age out of just because you turn 18 doesn't mean, oh no, now there's another program I need to join. As I said earlier, Centers for Independent Living serve all ages of all disability types. So that provides a key continuity of services as folks transition out of high school into what's next. So in addition to that, the Centers for Independent Living will have contracts with the centers for Independent Living, serving on the interagency teams and some of the expectations in terms of the services they're going to be providing are things like benefits, planning services, things like financial literacy. They'll be focused on supporting and educating people on accessing what are called ABLE accounts. Able stands for achieving a Better Life Experience, but it's an opportunity for these young adults to actually increase their assets and resources. In addition to that, they will also be serving as vendors for the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation. And so those are key elements that they'll play in working alongside the interagency transition teams with the school districts, with the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation. So it is a great opportunity for those organizations to really illustrate their strengths and the difference they make in the lives of people with disabilities. Carol: I love that you are leveraging the Centers for Independent Living, because I think sometimes people I don't know, they're there, but you sort of forget about them as being a resource for more than maybe folks are thinking about. Oh, somebody needs a ramp to get into their house. Let's call the CILs, you know, type of thing. But they have a lot more going for them. And they're strategically positioned throughout your state and in every state. You know, they're all throughout all the geographic...
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VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: RISE-Up! Elevating Rehabilitation and Employment Services for Underserved Communities with San Diego State University's Interwork Institute
10/04/2024
VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: RISE-Up! Elevating Rehabilitation and Employment Services for Underserved Communities with San Diego State University's Interwork Institute
The RISE-UP project is a transformative initiative to revolutionize rehabilitation services for underserved populations, focusing on racial and ethnic minorities. Dr. Mari Guillermo and Dr. Mark Tucker, Project Directors at San Diego State University's Interwork Institute, highlight how this project seeks to drive systemic change through state agency partnerships and tools like QA Advisor Plus. RISE-UP strives to reshape vocational rehabilitation and improve employment outcomes nationwide by fostering equity, inclusion, and access. {Music} Mark: QA Advisor Plus, a tool that agencies can use to check their RSA 911 data for errors and to help facilitate or expedite analysis of their own data. Mari: How do we close this gap? Where are people not being served, what populations specifically are not being served? And the emphasis is on systems change because we can't improve these outcomes without really looking at what needs to change within that system. Mark: So we hope that when you see information about the survey coming out, that you take a few minutes to fill it out and can provide us with information both about what they see as needs related to serving underserved populations. But also, we're asking folks to identify any promising practices that they're aware of with respect to providing effective services to underserved populations. Intro Voice: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow. Carol: Well, welcome to the manager minute, Dr. Mari Guillermo and Dr. Mark Tucker, are co-project directors with San Diego State University Interwork Institute. And they are joining me in the studio today. So how are things going in San Diego, Mari? Mari: Uh, well, it's warming up. It's going to be in the 90s by tomorrow, but it's also the start of the semester at San Diego State University. We're in our second week, so things are still trying to settle down, but it's been quite a good busy two weeks for sure. Carol: Oh, good for you. Well, I was in San Diego back in June and I'm going, okay, why isn't it warm here now? It was warmer in Minnesota than it was in San Diego. It was so crazy with that kind of, I don't know, marine layer or whatever hangs out. Yeah. How about you, Mark? How are things going for you? Mark: Going well, yeah, That marine layer in June we that's like a typical thing June Gloom we call it. And then we pay the price in September. September is usually warm for us, but we'll get back to our normal San Diego weather in October. Carol: Nice. I do love your fair city though. It is really awesome. Well, I thought, and I'm so glad I could get you two because I've been trying to snag you. I think I've been talking to you since last December, but now is finally the sweet spot. I thought it was super timely that we talk about the project given you're at the end of year one. October is also National Disability Employment Awareness Month, and I really think the project that you guys are embarking on could have a significant impact on the employment arena for underserved populations. As a little side note, we're super happy as part of the George Washington University team to be a partner on this project. So I want to give our listeners just a little bit of background. Over a year ago, RSA competed a discretionary grant, and the grant was specifically related to section 21 of the Rehab Act, as amended by WIOA, which requires RSA to reserve 1% of the funds appropriated each year for programs under titles three, title six, and seven to provide grant, contract or cooperative agreement awards to minority entities and Indian tribes to carry out activities under the Rehab Act. Secondly, minority entities and Indian tribes to conduct research training to or a related activity to improve services provided under the act, especially services provided to individuals from minority backgrounds. Or thirdly, state or public or private non-profit agencies or organizations to provide outreach and technical assistance to minority entities and American Indian tribes to promote their participation in activities under the Rehab Act. I learned a whole bunch. I know for our listeners, you're getting a whole history lesson, but I thought this was cool. And so under this priority, the department provides funding for a cooperative agreement for a minority entity or an Indian tribe to provide training and TA to a minimum range of 5 to 15 state VR agencies over a five year period of performance, so they are equipped to serve as role models for diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility in the workforce system by implementing policies, Practices and service delivery approaches designed to contribute to increasing competitive, integrated employment outcomes for individuals with disabilities from underserved populations. And the other cool part is that you also need to contribute via our research and really good practices that promote access, and this will be really of great benefit across the whole country. So I'm super excited. Let's dig in. So, Mari, typically our listeners like to know a little bit about our guests, your backgrounds. So can you tell a little bit about yourself and your background? Mari: Yeah, I'm originally from Hawaii, born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. I moved to San Diego in the late 80s to as a graduate student in the rehabilitation program at San Diego State University. So since moving to San Diego, I haven't moved very far from San Diego State University and our rehab counseling program. I'm currently faculty in our graduate program, but I've been with the Interwork Institute since its beginning, when it was started by doctors Fred McFarlane and Doctor Ian Champion, and just worked with some incredible number of leaders in our rehabilitation field. And upon graduating from the master's program, I started working with Doctor Bobby Atkins. And for those of you who few of you who are not familiar with Doctor Atkins, she is a leader. When we look at all diversity initiatives and in fact, when we look at section 21, that was started with her groundbreaking research looking at the involvement and participation of African Americans in vocational rehabilitation. But I worked with Doctor Atkins upon graduating from the program in the capacity building projects funded by this same pool of money. And Doctor Atkins was the national director for the Rehabilitation Cultural Diversity Initiative, which then morphed over into the Rehabilitation Capacity Building Project. So I worked with her from the 90s. All the way up to like 2015 I think is when the project ended. So a lot of the work that we are doing in Rise Up really builds on the foundational work that we did with Doctor Atkins back in the 1990s. So it's an incredible honor. Carol: I think that is very cool. You've come full circle. Oh my gosh, I love that. I had no idea. And for our listeners too, I just want to say a word about Doctor Fred McFarlane. Fred had passed away this summer. Fred has been a good friend to many, and many of our listeners have benefited from Fred's work with the NRLI and the Leadership Institute. Fred was the founding person developing that and really did such an amazing job touching so many VR professionals over his career. And his legacy definitely lives on. So I just I needed to say that because Fred is definitely missed. So, Marc, how about you? Why don't you tell us a little bit about your background. Mark: Sure, I've got a Master of Science in rehabilitation counseling, and I'm a certified rehabilitation counselor. And in fact, you know, when I was applying to the graduate program in rehabilitation counseling, Fred interviewed me. Uh, that was a few years back. But that... Carol: Yeah, 1 or 2. Mark: Yeah, but he was there right at the start for me. And then kind of in the profession, I got my start in community based non-profit agencies and then from there joined the Rehabilitation Continuing Education program for region nine at Interwork and SDSU in the early 2000. And when I was there, was involved in all kinds of different technical assistance, training and research projects, while also kind of teaching in an adjunct capacity in the Rehabilitation counseling graduate program at SDSU. And then eventually the Rehabilitation Continuing Education programs transitioned into the Technical Assistance and Continuing Education centers. So I continued doing that same type of work with what were called the TACE centers, and then in 2014, joined the Rehabilitation Counseling Program faculty at SDSU full time. So that's sort of where I spend a lot of my time. But I still continue working with, you know, Interwork. The two are just so intricately joined. It's really difficult to be part of one without being part of the other. So I continue doing work at Interwork. One of the recent projects that Mari and I were both involved in a few years back was the California version of the Promise Projects. It was a 5 or 6 years of work with transition age youth who were recipients of Supplemental Security Income. Presently, I'm the coordinator of the Rehabilitation Counseling program at SDSU, and do that while maintaining connections to a variety of projects at Interwork. Carol: Yeah, you're always wearing about 40 hats. I always think of you, Mark, as being the data guy though, too, because you love the data. I mean, everybody likes data, sort of but you love the data. I mean, you've done some really amazing things with our national data. Mark: Thank you. I enjoy that. I appreciate being able to bring that to a lot of the projects that I'm involved in. Yeah, you're right. I think I find it fun maybe at times where other people are like, oh, we'll leave that to somebody else. Carol: Yeah, absolutely. Oh my gosh. So why don't you guys tell us a little bit about your project? I know it's called Rise Up. Maybe you can tell our group like what's that stand for? Everybody's got their fun acronyms and what you're trying to accomplish. Mari: The name really captures the overall vision for this project, and we have to give a shout out to Doctor Chaz Compton because after several failed acronyms, as we were writing the proposal, it was Chaz who came up with the name. And RISEUP stands for Rehabilitation Improvements in Services and Employment for Underserved Populations. And so that really captures what we're aiming to do, improving the services and in the process of improving services, improving the outcomes for underserved populations, in competitive integrated employment, in careers, in academic achievements and accomplishments now underserved populations. There's many ways we can look at that, but RSA has defined it for us and it concentrates on race and ethnicity. So it encompasses individuals who are black, Latino, indigenous, Native American persons, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, and other persons of color. And so that is the specific focus for this grant and the population that we hope to impact ultimately with the work that we do with the state agencies. An important component of the project is the partnerships that we aim to build with ten state agencies. And that partnership is really important because while we think about this work is okay, we'll do training and technical assistance and all these different topics and how it intersects with these different populations based on evidence based practices and promising practices. But we can only do so much with training and technical assistance. We really have to look at, okay, how does this then translate into the work that goes on in the agency and not just in the agency? How does that look at the different levels within the agency? How a director would translate the training will look different than how a counselor or a technician would translate. We hope that it complements each other, but everyone has a different role in this process. And that's the other part of the project, is that we want to really look at the whole agency and all the different levels, and being able to provide that support to them where they need it. And really looking at how do we close this gap? Where are people not being served, what populations specifically are not being served within a state or a section of the state? And the emphasis is on systems change, because we can't improve these outcomes without really looking at what needs to change within that system. And there's different components that we're going to be incorporating into the project in our partnerships with the state agencies to look at what are the strengths and weaknesses within your agencies and what are the opportunities and gaps. And while there are big challenges that we all are aware of, there's also some great things going on and we want to highlight that, and we believe we'll be able to find that also within each of the state agencies. Carol: I like a couple of things about what you just said. Well, I like it all, but a couple things stick out to me because holistically, we've seen it as we do TA and as people put in new initiatives in place. If you really get the whole agency going in the same direction, it is the rise or fall of that project for sure, because maybe the director is all in, but the mid-level managers and the counselors are like, I don't even understand what's going on. You're asking us to do this other thing? I don't get it. It seems weird. It's extra. I don't want to. I'm not going to. And then it doesn't happen. And so you really have to get everybody in sync. So I think you're smart to look at the whole organization and how everybody interprets the information and the training and how it actually gets implemented, because it isn't the director implementing it. It's the boots on the ground folks, it's your counselor. You need your line folks engaged and involved and giving you feedback and understanding what's happening. So that I think that is brilliant. Secondly, the data I think it's been interesting and I think Mark, it's some of the work that you've done over the last couple of years that I've known you as well, that as people start to get better about looking at their data, I think folks were looking really high level, not getting into the real intricacies and seeing the maybe the disparities that are happening in employment as you start looking at different races and ethnicities and who's getting what kind of work and what those outcomes are. And then we've seen states be completely shocked, like we didn't know we have a huge problem in this area. So I think getting at the data is super important. So I know, Mark, you and I had spoken to and you talked about this special wrinkle, and we're not using wrinkle in a bad way. It was in a good way. But you have a contractor called Encorpe and they're bringing something special to the project. Tell us a little bit about that. Mark: Sure, and this relates a bit more to the data aspects of the project that we were just talking about. So Encorpe is a partner on the project. It's an organization that's headed by a couple of individuals with considerable experience with the public VR program, and they offer a tool that's known as QA Advisor Plus. So this is a tool that agencies can use to check their RSA 911 data for errors and to kind of help facilitate or expedite analysis of their own data. So users of the tool can run custom queries on their data. They can do things like track changes from quarter to quarter in things like population served on a variety of measures that might include things like applications or eligibility plan services, competitive integrated employment outcomes. Those are the kinds of things that are of interest, particularly to us as part of the Rise Up project and built into this project is that Rise Up will pay for one year of QA advisor Plus for participating agencies if they elect to use it. So agencies aren't required to use QA Advisor Plus if they don't want to. We have other strategies for helping and assisting with data analysis if they elect not to use it, but that's there as an offer. Rise Up will cover one year of the cost of that service. And I think one of the things that we're trying to get at is that through the project is to kind of help facilitate kind of long term attention and ongoing attention to things like population served and differences in services and outcomes, and to use that for more data informed planning, in our case, particularly around underserved populations. But agencies can certainly pretty easily extend that out to other groups of interest or other aspects of the rehabilitation process. That may not be maybe the central focus of what Rise Up is doing. And one of the things I sort of want to underscore here is that the project is intentionally designed to make considerable use of data that the state agencies are already gathering and reporting to RSA anyway. So if agencies are interested maybe in participating in Rise Up, but they're like, oh, I don't want there to be like an additional heavy burden on my data folks or my direct service folks. Our intention is that things will be fairly light with respect to those kinds of demands, because we'll take advantage of existing data that's already being gathered, and then we'll either use QA Advisor Plus or some of our own staff to assist with the analyses. Carol: That's the beauty of this project really, I love that because it isn't like you're going, okay, state, we're knocking on your door to like, come and do this thing. And then you need to add like ten positions to pay attention to this. And I think it's great because I got a chance to look at that QA Advisor Plus. I saw the Encorpe guys at, CSAVR and they were like, hey, do you want to see a little demo of this? I was like, oh my gosh, I know as being a small blind agency director, we had one data person who's doing a million things, and so we were very surfacey. We got a little bit of stuff, but it was really hard. You have one person there doing a million things, and so that tool, I liked how it kind of rose up little things. It had that cool feature and it would just flag something for you to go like, hey, what's going on in this particular area? That would have been so lovely because I know a lot of our programs are small, so you might just have a half a position or one position that's working in this area. They don't have a whole team that's got all this really developed deep skill set in there. I just think having that added resource is amazing and could really take that level of sort of your data analytics to a whole different place than what you've been able to do so far and not, you know, not disparaging anybody's current skill level at it. It's just that people don't have time because there's so many demands. So when you can add like a feature to help with analyzing that data, it really is a great gift. So who are your agencies that are currently participating in the project? Mari: So we've had initial conversations with a number of agencies, and certainly there were a number of agencies who had written letters of commitment when we wrote the grant, and that was really important. I don't want to mention the states yet until we have agreements in place out of respect for the agencies, our goal is to have by the end of year two, our goal is to have six agreements in place and by the end of year three, another four. So that will be a total of ten. But we've already started to have that conversation and people are at different starting points, right? And trying to map out how will this make sense and be of value to your agency and mapping that out in an individualized agreement with each of the states? So maybe we'll be invited...
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VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Maximizing VR Impact - Insights from the VR-ROI Project!
09/03/2024
VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Maximizing VR Impact - Insights from the VR-ROI Project!
Get ready to dive deep into the future of Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) with Dr. Joe Ashley and Dr. Bob Schmidt in our latest episode! Joe, the dynamic Project Director of the VR-ROI initiative at George Washington University, teams up with Bob, one of the leading economists and the Project Research Coordinator, to bring you insider knowledge on revamping return on investment models for VR programs. They’re on a mission to streamline and elevate how VR agencies operate, helping them become more efficient, effective, and impactful. Their discussion is packed with actionable insights that will empower your agency to sharpen its data collection strategies, ensuring the true value of your services shines through. Plus, learn how to better communicate the VR success story to policymakers and stakeholders! Tune in to discover how you can maximize your VR impact with the latest advancements from the VR-ROI project. Don’t miss out! {Music} Joe: We're trying to make sure we have information that the director can use with policymakers, and something for clients and counselors to use to say, yes, this is the kind of services we're looking for. Bob: The model we develop is based on readily available administrative data. Joe: It's built on the individual customers and how well they do and what their outcomes are. Bob: The human capital development, that's what it's all about a lot. Some things just aren't measurable. So when you mentioned financial return on investment, that's what we're talking about. Joe: If you can't capture it, you're not able to tell the story. Carol: Yep, if it isn't documented, it didn't happen. Bob: That's right. Joe: Yeah. Intro Voice: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow. Carol: Well, welcome to the manager minute. Joining me in the studio today are Dr. Joe Ashley, the project director for the VR Return on Investment project based at the George Washington University, and Dr. Bob Schmidt, one of the five economists working on the project and the project research coordinator. So, Joe, how are things going for you today? Joe: Today they are doing really well. Thanks for asking, Carol. Carol: Nice to hear it, Joe. and Bob, how are you doing? Bob: I'm doing well as well, at least, as well as Joe is doing. Carol: That's awesome. Alright, glad to have it guys. Okay, so for our listeners, Joe is my colleague and we got him out of retirement to serve as the project director for this important initiative. And this project is funded by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research, also known as NIDILRR. Now, this is the federal government's primary disability research organization and is part of the Administration for Community Living. Now, NIDILRR's mission is to generate new knowledge and to promote its effective use to improve the abilities of individuals with disabilities to perform activities of their choice in the community and to expand society's capacity to provide full opportunities and accommodations for its citizens with disabilities. NIDILRR achieves this mission by funding research, demonstration, training, technical assistance, and related activities to maximize the full inclusion and integration into society, employment, independent living, family support, and economic and social self-sufficiency of individuals with disabilities of all ages. They also promote the transfer of, and use and adoption of rehab technology for individuals with disabilities in a timely manner, and also ensure the widespread distribution and usable formats of practical, scientific and technological information. And they do address a wide range of disabilities and impairments across populations of all ages. Now, Joe, I know you have a little disclaimer you wanted to make. Joe: Yeah, I just want to be sure that people understand that what Bob and I are going to talk about today is our opinion of what return on investment should be, and is not necessarily reflect what NIDILRR is looking at. Carol: Excellent. Well thanks Joe. Let's dig in. So, Joe, why don't you kick us off and tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey in vocational rehabilitation? Joe: Carol, I've been in rehabilitation for quite a while. I worked with the Virginia Department for Aging and Rehabilitative Services, the general agency in Virginia, for over 25-27 years, most of the time as an assistant commissioner in a variety of roles. I have a master's in rehabilitation counseling from the University of South Carolina. That sort of got me focused on vocational rehabilitation. And then later I had a Doctorate in rehabilitation from SIU at Carbondale that took me on a path of looking at program evaluation and program development. When I got to Virginia, I was working out of the Woodrow Wilson Rehab Center, now called Wilson Rehabilitation Center, and was working in a program that was collaborative across, it was one of the early transition grants, 1985,and it looked at vocational evaluation as a part of a process to help kids learn what they needed to do. And we were working with students from special education and vocational education in the schools, and vocational rehabilitation, and getting these systems to collaborate to help kids find out what they want to do and to be successful in employment and in life. And I got to where I really enjoyed that kind of collaborative work, and I ended up as an assistant commissioner in the agency, looking at developing innovative new programs as a part of my responsibilities and looking at a lot of the ancillary support services like rehabilitation, engineering and other kinds of things. Through a series of circumstances, I ended up as the director of the field services for four years, where I began to get a good sense of what disabilities needed to be in terms of supports to be successful in employment and being able to live successfully in their communities. In addition to that, what counselors and other staff needed to be able to provide those services to them. And then I got into the job that was my favorite, which was something called grants and special programs, where I did a lot of the Social Security stuff, cost reimbursement, work, incentives specialist advocates. We created a new system there to do fee for service for the work incentive services. We did a lot of work with the workforce agencies. I did all the agreements with that, and then I got to do grants and any of the grants that helped people with disabilities be able to live and work and thrive in their communities were things that we were willing to support. And I got to work with a lot of different funding systems and across a lot of different systems, you know, Special Ed workforce systems, behavioral health, a lot of different groups to help people with disabilities have opportunities. So that's what I really enjoyed. And that's where I came across the late doctor David Dean and then Bob Schmidt as a part of that package with Dean. And it was about telling the VR story. And I got real passionate about how do you tell this story in a way that is going to get people like GAO to pay attention, as well as help directors with policymakers and individuals and counselors help make decisions about what's a good choice for them. So that's really how I got to where we are today with this new grant. Carol: Very cool Joe. I know we all look to your program in Virginia for kind of the cutting edge stuff that was happening, because you all seem to always have just something cooking. Joe: Yes. Carol: It didn't matter what. And especially like the disability work incentive stuff that you were talking about and all of that. Oh gosh. I just think you've done a lot of stellar things there. Joe: Well thank you. It was fun. Carol: It's awesome. So, Bob, tell us a little bit about yourself. Bob: Sure. Happy to. Joe mentioned Doctor David Dean. He was a colleague of mine in the Department of Economics at the University of Richmond. He worked on what he called economics of disability, and he started working on that in graduate school at Rutgers with a faculty member there. And he worked on that. So that was in the 1980s. He came to the University of Richmond, and he got me interested in it because he was an outgoing, gregarious, very bright guy and made friends easily. So he got me involved in this probably early 1990s, and we started working with DARS and several other things at the time with Joe, but also Kirsten Roe. I don't know how many people remember her, but she was instrumental in all the work we did. So this is actually our third grant with NIDILRR. The first one was a demonstration grant. So it's a kind of a proof of concept. Second was implementing it. Now this one is refining it and taking it to the next step. That's what we're trying to do with that. So David got me excited about it. Joe keeps me excited and he keeps me honest. Carol: That is awesome. Well, I know just being around the director ranks for years and folks talking about return on initiative, it's been a, you know, a hot topic. People chat about it, but I don't know that everybody always really understands it. And I think sometimes people think maybe it's something that it isn't and they aren't very good at explaining it, but everybody wants to do it. So you guys are going to unpack all this for us. Joe, why don't you tell us a little bit about the project and what you're trying to accomplish? Joe: Well, with this current iteration. It's what NIDILRR calls a field initiated project on their development side, and it's got a ridiculously long title. So I'm just going to say it is about updating and simplifying our return on investment model. That's its main purpose, and it's about helping our agencies understand what they can do to be more efficient and more effective, and take a look at the mix of services that they provide, to be sure that they are getting the most out of the resources they have to help people with disabilities obtain, you know, that probability of employment and upon employment, their earnings. And we're trying to make sure we have information that the director can use with policy makers, that agencies can take a look inside their own services to say, maybe I need more of a particular type of service because I'm getting good outcomes, or maybe I need to tweak a service because it's not getting what I want it to do, and then something for clients and counselors to use to say, yes, this is the kind of services we're looking for. We got four goals, and the first one is just really to update the model. Our previous model was prior to WIOA implementation, so what we hope to be able to do is take a look at the data systems and take a look at the performance indicators that WIOA requires. And we can do a correlation, perhaps with the long term employment to see how well they're correlated. Also take a look at Covid impact. The second goal is about intensity. Our other model is you either got a service or you didn't. And if you got the service then how did it affect employment and earnings? Well, the next logical step according to The Economist and we have five on the project as you mentioned earlier, was what is the intensity of the service. Does that make a difference. So that intensity measure could be hours of work. It could be what it costs to do something. It could be units of service. And taking a look at if that is related to the propensity for employment. The other piece that goes with that is how about internals provided services, what we had before in the system, nobody had good measures of the services their own staff provided. So we're hoping with what we're seeing now and we're working with the two agencies in North Carolina, and they've been extremely helpful and collaborative with us on this process is take a look at the internally provided services and see what impact they have on the employment and earnings side of things. And then we've been told many times our third goal is simplify the model. Right now it takes economists to run it. Well that's not always a good idea for some people. So what we're trying to do is see what econometric models could we put in place to simplify this process so that it's more available to rehab agencies. But you want to make sure it's still rigorous enough to give you a reliable estimate of return on investment. So one of the things we're having with that is many of the folks on the who are listening to the podcast may be aware that we did a data analysis and management capacity survey that CSVRA sent out. Our advisory committee supported, and with that, we got 54 agencies to provide us information on what their data capacity is and what this capacity of their staff is. And then what kind of training they might be interested in. We're still looking at the data from that and we'll have some information on that later. But what we find in this may make a big difference on how simplified the model can be, or whether we need to take a different track to help people be able to implement a new model. And then finally, it's about knowledge translation. And part of that is coming to us like we did a consumer and stakeholder forum with the North Carolina State Rehab councils and some other stakeholders to get input on what they'd like to see, what kinds of information and would this information be helpful to them. And then we're going to have another consumer and stakeholder forum probably next spring to say, here's the model as we have it so far. Does this make sense to you and would this be valuable to you? So those are the big overriding goals that we have for the project. Carol: I really like that you guys are digging into the capacity that agencies have, you know, with that data analysis, because I'm just thinking definitely, as I've been out across the country that you've got to have and the have nots. I mean, there for sure. are folks, I think of our friends in Texas and they have a lovely team there. Just they have like an amazing... Joe: Oh yeah, they do. Carol: ...resource team. And then you've got other folks trying to scrape together kind of a half of a position that can maybe do a little smidge of a little something around the 911. Joe: they may have a resource like a data system, but they don't have anybody that can run it, or they may have staff with the capacity to do the data system, but they don't have the system. I mean, it's a lot of different variables there. Bob: I'd like to jump in here just on one thing, which was on the simplified VR model. So the model we've developed, thank God it was by economists, is we're trying to address the question here. The goal of the program is to get people into competitive employment or keep them in competitive employment. If they already came into the program with it, maybe build on that. So there are a lot of things that are correlated with how well you do in the labor market, gender, race, Age, education level. All things are correlated, right? And maybe service provision in the VR program. But we'd like to take it from well, it's correlated, but we don't know exactly how or why. In the same way you can say, well, provision of this specific type of service leads to improvement in the labor market, leads to a greater likelihood of obtaining competitive employment. Now that's a different issue. Now the way you normally do that, the gold standard is a randomized clinical trial, right? Where you take people and you randomly select them and it's double blind. So neither the researcher nor the individual involved in the experiment know who's receiving the treatment, or who isn't. Well, that's clearly impossible in VR. First of all, it's illegal to deny service to someone who is eligible and for whom you have the money. But secondly, it's impossible. So what you have to do is you have to impose statistical controls somehow. You have to do it through some sort of statistical model. And we've developed one which is state of the science. What state of the science inherently means that not everybody can implement it. So even at some universities, they aren't able to implement this particular model. And so we wanted to ask the question, could we come up with a simplified version of this model, a simpler model that can be used possibly in a VR agency or possibly at a local community college or university, something like that. And they could get similar results. So we wanted to see how could we do it? Is that a possible goal? What do you lose when you do it? Does it do a good enough job, or what kind of qualifiers do you have on it? Joe: Where are the tradeoffs? Bob: Yeah, what are the tradeoffs? That's a simpler model we're trying to do. Carol: Should we talk about the model you developed now? Do you want to talk about it? Bob: That'd be fine. Sure. Carol: Let's do it. Bob: Okay. One of the things is that the model we developed is based on readily available administrative data. What that means is you don't have to run a survey. You don't have to go out and do a very expensive sort of research project to find out what's going on. Instead, we use data from agency's own data system, which they collect to report to the Rehabilitation Services Administration, (RSA). they have really, really very good data. The RSA forces them to collect very good data. In fact, for some of our economists, their eyes just lit up when David told them the kind of data that he was able to access it. Whoa. That's great. So there are two levels. One is you get data from the agency itself, and then they will provide data to us that they provide through the quarterly RSA and nine over 11 report to the RSA. And more than that. So we get much greater detail than that if we know how to use it. If we can identify and know how to learn how to use it. And then secondly, all the agencies have given us access, been able to give us access to unemployment insurance sort of data. So quarterly data on that and what the RSA collects upon closure. They're mandated to follow employment and earnings for four quarters after closure, but we don't think that's long enough, especially since WIOA was passed Workforce Innovation Opportunities Act and changed the mandate to work on transition age, transitioning students with disabilities or providing those sorts of services. Well, if you're going to start working with young people who are just entering the workforce, or you're providing college level education or skilled training services to any age. You can't just follow them for four quarters. I mean, if you're just entering the workforce, you're not going to enter it at the highest levels of the workforce, right? So if you want to know what the real impact is, you have to follow them longer. So with the unemployment insurance agencies, we've been able to get quarterly employment and earnings data from 2 to 3 years before they even applied to the program. That's kind of a baseline. But what are the services do to you? How do things change? Well, that's your baseline three years before application. Then we try to follow them for at least five years after application at least. Now the current one starts in 2018. So the earliest applicants we have from 2018, and then we collect all applicants between 2018 and 2021. So already it's a stretch to get five years of data. But we had to start that recent because we all wasn't fully implemented effectively until 2017, 1819. In fact, the fellow North County says preferably 19 or 2021. But then you don't have, you know, this thing ends in 2025 and you...
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VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Unlocking the Potential- Elevate Your Skills with Enhanced NCRTM Resources for Counselors, Supervisors, and VR Professionals
08/01/2024
VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Unlocking the Potential- Elevate Your Skills with Enhanced NCRTM Resources for Counselors, Supervisors, and VR Professionals
Go behind the curtain at the National Clearinghouse of Rehabilitation Training Materials (NCRTM) with Heather Servais, Project Manager. Join us as we delve into the vast resources available to vocational rehabilitation counselors, supervisors, and VR professionals. From employment navigation to disability-specific resources and cutting-edge training, Heather reveals how the revamped NCRTM website is a treasure trove of information and tools to enhance your practices and improve services. Tune in to explore these new features and see how the NCRTM can support you in your vital work. Don't miss this opportunity to unlock the full potential of this dynamic platform! {Music} Heather: This is made by people that have done the work, like it's just so relevant and timely to what's happening in the field. We have resources on a Microsoft Word and PDF, PowerPoints. There's a whole bunch of information on the NCRTM page, which is a great starting point for when you're thinking about how can I make this information accessible for everyone? If you have a customer who's thinking about work, or you want to have some reputable job-seeking tools, it's a great tool for those counselors to be able to give to their customers. If you want help locating some resources, just email us NCRTM at New Editions dot Net. Intro Voice: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow. Carol: Welcome to the manager minute, Heather Servais project manager with the National Clearinghouse of Rehabilitation Training Materials, or the NCRTM, will join me in the studio today. So, Heather, how are things going? Heather: It's so good to be here. I'm great. I'm so excited to be on Manager Minute. Carol: I love it, I love it. We've been doing lots of fun stuff lately, so it's kind of fun to do this collaboration. I want to give our listeners a little bit of a background. So the NCRTM is a central clearinghouse for vocational rehabilitation information for individuals with disabilities, and it offers VR and education communities an opportunity to contribute new knowledge to their specific fields and gain visibility for their work. Now, I remember Heather, when I was still with Minnesota Blind, and I stumbled across this website and it was full of information, I was like, what is this? I had no idea it existed. And back then we had this internal like a little intranet. And I remember linking up staff to different materials because back in the day, and I know you went through a big refresh of the website back in the day, it was a little complicated to get through. I was linking folks to some really specific things that existed out there, and I thought that was so cool. Now, I know since you've been on, you've been working really hard on promoting the website and everything that NCRTM does, and we wanted to just take our listeners behind the curtain at the NCRTM. I also wanted our listeners to know, too, that Heather and I have been collaborating for the past few years on a lot of different items, and she has been fabulous in promoting our podcasts and all our materials for the VRTAC for Quality Management. So with that, let's dig in. So, Heather, would you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and your journey into VR? You didn't just like land at the NCRTM out of nowhere. You came through kind of a fun journey. Heather: Yeah. I'd love to tell you a little bit about my journey in VR. Well, if you would have asked me when I was growing up if I would be a VR counselor or know what the field of rehabilitation counseling was, I would have told you no. I actually landed in this field by happy accident when I went to college. I was majoring in history and was considering being a teacher, or maybe pre-law, and I was looking for ways to get involved on campus. And I came across a club called Best Buddies that pairs college students into 1 to 1 friendships with individuals with disabilities. And I just loved being a part of the club. I loved my buddy that I was able to be paired with. And then while I was volunteering, I got asked by one of my co volunteers to consider working with this new company in town that worked with individuals with disabilities on independent living skills and non-residential support services. So I started doing that when I was in college, absolutely fell in love with it. And then when I graduated, I moved on to work for a community rehabilitation provider, where I started as a job coach, moved up to an employment specialist. I dabbled in vocational evaluation and then eventually became the employment services manager. And while I was there and working in the field, I absolutely just fell in love and I knew that this is what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. So I actually went back to school for my master's while I was working full time. I was really lucky to be the recipient of an RSA scholarship. That helped me be able to go back to school to get my master's in rehabilitation counseling, and I was able to do that, which I really felt like helped my career and was really able to be beneficial to me. When I made the jump from community rehabilitation provider to the state VR side, it was like there was all these names and terms and theories behind the work that I was actually doing. So it really kind of tied it all together in a nice little bow. I worked for that community rehabilitation provider for about seven years, and then I decided to make the jump to state VR to be a counselor. And for a long time I had a general caseload. I also worked in a rural county, and then towards the end of my time in the field, I worked with youth. And then I made the jump over to VR headquarters, where I took a supervisory job as the supervisor of at the time was a new unit called the Field and Provider Relations Unit, and this unit did training and technical assistance with both VR staff and with the community rehabilitation providers that were providing those employment services. So I really enjoyed it because it got to pull together the field experience that I had and then also the provider experience. And then my last stop at Florida VR was as the assistant chief of Field Services, where I oversaw a lot of the programming. So I oversaw learning and development, Ticket to Work, the employment programs team and the deaf hard of hearing deaf blind team and business relations team. I worked there and I loved building programs and loved being part of state VR. Towards 2020, I started to study for my Project Management Professional, or PMP certification. We were managing a lot of projects and building a lot of programs, and I felt like the PMP kind of helped me have a better understanding of some different methodologies to be able to do that. So it really helped pull the programmatic experience with the project management experience. And that's what really landed me here at NTM. So in my role, I get to work with a lot of technical assistance centers and training centers, and I'm able to have both the VR program knowledge and then also the project management knowledge to be able to understand the terms of the project and the contracts and the business aspect of this too. So it's been a long journey, but I'm so happy to be here because this role I get to work with so many different stakeholders. I love working with the VR agencies, the counselors, the rehabilitation counseling students, the parents, the families. I get to see it all, and not just from a local perspective. I'm getting to work with state and nationwide programs, and I think that's just a really big joy. Carol: And it's so cool. What a great fit for you. This explains a lot. You crack me up, though, because I was considering being in pre-law like back in my undergrad as well. I feel like we have kind of similar journeys. I was a job coach. I'm like, we both come from those humble beginnings, kind of fall into VR, and we find a lot of our guests on the show have been from different backgrounds and sort of stumbled into VR different ways. So that is so cool to know about you. Thanks for sharing that. Now, I know sometimes people are maybe confused a little bit about the NCRTM can you ground us in like how all this works, how you're connected with RSA? Like who do you actually work for? Because people are like, is this an RSA thing? What is this thing? So give us the skinny. Heather: Yeah, sure. So the NCRTM has actually been around for more than 40 years. When I found that out, you know, I was a little history nerd. So I did some digging and I was shocked. I was like 40 years. I mean, I think I've, you know, been around in the field for a long time and I didn't even know about the NCRTM until I was working at headquarters as a manager. So I think about the first basically half of my career, I didn't even know about it. And that's one of the things about this job is like, I want people to know. And so when NCRTM originated, it was a paper based repository that was basically where RSA grantees would submit their products at the end, and they would be stored and used and to what it is today, which is this really dynamic and engaging platform that has a website and a YouTube and social media and lots of connections. And so it's kind of continuing to grow and evolve. And the driver of NCRTM, where it actually originates is section 15 of the Rehabilitation Act. We are in there. And what section 15 says is that it creates a clearinghouse, and it says that we have to deliver three things. One is information about the location, provision and availability of services and programs for individuals with disabilities. We also need to have information and research related to recent medical and scientific developments bearing on disabilities. And we have to have information about the current numbers of individuals with disabilities and their needs. And so when we look at NCRTM, that's our driver. That's what we're trying to do. We're trying to share that information, the NCRTM itself and how it relates to RSA. Right now, NCRTM is funded by a contract through RSA and is operated by New Editions Consulting. So technically I work for New Editions Consulting, which is a fantastic company to work for. We just won one of the top places to work for the Washington Post, so they take wonderful care of us. It's been one of my favorite teams I've ever had the pleasure of being a part of. It's just been a really fun place to work. So we work very, very closely with RSA. We have a coordination team, so there are a big group of folks from RSA and the different units there that add and contribute to the content and the planning and the strategic direction for NCRTM. And then we also work really, really closely with the Technical Assistance Centers with other RSA grantees and federal partners to build out the content to deliver to our users through the NCRTM website and our platforms. Carol: I had no clue that that had been around for 40 years. Holy cow. I had no idea. That is amazing. And I can imagine, you know, when you think about the paper based, you know, products in the day. Heather: How do you get that out into the hands of the field? So we live in a great time, you know, we have this technology and we can use it because the products that are coming out of the technical assistance centers and some other RSA grantees, you know, this is made by people that have done the work. Like that's one of the things that I love so much about the clearinghouse is it's just so relevant and timely to what's happening in the field. Carol: Yeah, I love it. That advent of social media, too, has helped so much with us all being able to kind of cross plug and promote each other's tools and activities and things that are going on that has been so great. Now, I know since you arrived there, I feel like, no, I'm not disparaging anybody from the past, but I feel like you've brought this just fresh, different look at things and you've been really doing a lot of cool stuff. So would you talk about some of that cool stuff that you've been doing and kind of where are you getting your ideas from? Because it's been really fun to watch. Heather: Yeah, I came onto the scene with NTM in late 2021, and there was a lot of this stuff that was already in progress, and we launched a new version of the website in 2022. So not only do we have, you know, pretty robust content, NCRTM has mostly been known for the library. When you say NCRTM, people think library, library, library, and that is a big part of what we do. We have more than 3600 items in our library. When you think of a library, it can be anything from podcast episodes, research papers, blogs, toolkits, guides, trainings. There's such a diverse array of materials in that library. So that's one of the things we were most known for. We started with some of those library enhancements, so we had an enhanced filtering. So now our users are able to locate by topic area, disability type, audience type. There's a ton of filters that you can select to really zero in on materials of interest. We also added some recently viewed features. So if you go to the NCRTM and you're poking around looking for some things and you look at it, you can go back and you'll see some of the items that you recently viewed. We now have the ability to share the information from the website so you can email it to yourself. You can share it directly on social media. Also, as part of that big website launch, we updated our training and events page. This is one of those plugs that if you are new to the website, I love directing people to the training and events page because I know time is of the essence and there's so much training and information available, and NCRTM collects training and events and post them from the Technical Assistance Center. So if there's something happening from those, those are going to be on our site, from federal partners, from grantees. So a grantee could be a university, could be a nonprofit. There's lots of different types of events that are out there on our site. You can sort by live, which means these are like live upcoming events. So you're going to want to log into those or on demand. So that could be either a training module that was made to be an asynchronous learning experience, or it could be a recorded event from one of the previously featured live and upcoming events that we had hosted prior. You can also sort on that training events page by CRC Credit Availability. So for those of you that are counselors or administrators or managers that are looking to get those CRC credits, this is a great way where you can zero in on finding those trainings that are of interest to you, that offer that CRC credit for free. It's a great resource. We also added some new pages to the platform so that we're really the result of user feedback. I think that's one of the things that I'm most proud of with NCRTM team that we do is we are serious about user feedback. So we are collecting feedback from surveys. We run user advisory groups a few times a year. We also are really out in the community talking to VR counselors, talking to rehabilitation counseling students. We're talking to grantees about their needs and what they're doing, really wanting to get the feedback so that we can curate content or we can build content that's meaningful for folks. So in the spirit of section 15, one of the new items that we launched on NCRTM was a programs and services page. And this page focuses on job seeking resources. So for individuals with disabilities. So all processes from when you're considering employment. So maybe you need to do some assessments. Or maybe you're just thinking about going to work all the way through the hiring and retention and career advancement phases of your career. So this is a really great starting point. If you have a customer who's thinking about work or you want to have some reputable job seeking tools right at your fingertips, you can use it there. It's a great tool for those counselors to be able to give to their customers as a starting point. And we do update that page regularly. So if you would like to see like a national level resource on there that you found, that's not, email us. We're here. We want to add things to that page. We are constantly growing the page. We are adding new information to the library and to the website regularly. Carol: I actually have your site up right now. I love it really did change with that refresh that you guys did in 22 I remember having. Well, I'll say it, I tried to search in the library before and it would bring up like either 50,000 things or no things. When you put in word search or something, it just seems like your capabilities on here are so much more robust than they used to be. Heather: Yeah, we've definitely added a lot of enhancements to make it a lot more user friendly. We were trying to make it more streamlined. We wanted things to be easier to find, easier to get to material. And then we're also trying to be a little bit plainer in our language. Some of our users felt the language was way too academic, and we wanted this site to be something that's useful for all. So we're trying to do better with using plainer language and getting straight to the point of what the document is or what that material is, so that it's easy for people to digest when they're reading it. We also added a business engagement page. So for those counselors or even those folks who work for VR agencies that are on the business relations or business consulting team, this is a great resource to kind of help you understand the business needs and how to work with employers. When you're thinking about things like job placement and job retention and accommodations and the process for hiring, that's another great tool that you can use and share in your work. But you can use it as a counselor to educate yourself. It's also helpful when you're engaging with businesses so that you're using their business language. Carol: Excellent Heather: One other thing for counselors to consider. I know sometimes when we're VR counselors, I always say it was the hardest job I ever had. There's so much that you have to balance. There's so much to learn, and it always feels like there's things on your plate that you need to do. And sometimes we're so focused on our individual customers, our individual caseload, that we can forget that we're part of something so much bigger. It's not just our caseload or our office or even our state. We're part of a national VR program. Every state has a VR program. There's programs and the territories. There are so many others that are in this field along with you. And I think that's one of the great things about NCTRM is it can kind of help connect the dots so that you get to see the bigger picture. You can find materials that are created by other folks that are doing this work. You're able to see what innovative practices are working on caseloads that may be similar to yours. It may give you strategies that you can better know how to work with your customers. So I think that's one takeaway for NCRTM is just it's a different perspective. You can find things from your peers to help improve your work, and it just connects you better to the VR community around the country. Carol: Do you guys agree with that page at all with like CSAVR and the NET? Heather: We did. We were very happy that CSAVR and Kathy West Evans was helpful with us when formulating that content and reviewing that content. So yes, absolutely. We partnered with them to help put that together. Carol: Excellent. Heather: We also have I know you mentioned the Disability Innovation Fund...
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VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Navigating Case Management System Upgrades
07/01/2024
VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Navigating Case Management System Upgrades
Join us for an insightful episode of the VRTAC-QM Manager Minute as Brittny MacIver and Sarah Clardy from the VRTAC-QM team share their expertise on case management systems. Brittny, an expert in Program and Performance within our Quality Management team, and Sarah, the Program Director for Fiscal and Resource Management, delve into best practices and the growing trend of states seeking to upgrade their systems. Learn about the nuances of state requests and the RFP process, and gain valuable knowledge to help you decide whether it's time to stay with your current system or make a move. {Music} Brittny: Avoid over customizing the system. There's a lot of systems out there that are already available in VR agencies, and so if it works for that VR agency, there's a good chance the majority of the processes are going to work for your agency as well. Sarah: Silos, how do we break down silos? And this process really can be a nice segue to combining program and fiscal together. I know we've said that multiple times, and I don't think we can say it enough. This process really is an opportunity to develop relationships. Brittny: Be curious. Your agency may have a process that you're unsure why it exists. Some may say that's how it's always been. I think it's good to be curious, figure out the reason behind it, and see if there's a way that you can streamline those processes. Intro Voice: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow. Carol: Welcome to the Manager Minute. Today I'm thrilled to have two of my esteemed colleagues, Brittny MacIver and Sarah Clardy from the VRTAC-QM, joining me in the studio today. So, Brittny, how's it going for you? Brittny: It's going great. How about you? Carol: Awesome. I'm better for seeing your smiling face this morning. And how about you, Miss Clardy? How are you doing? Sarah: I'm great. Great to kick off a new week. Carol: Excellent. So for our listeners, Brittny serves on the program and performance side of our QM team. And Sarah is the program director for the fiscal and resource management side of our QM team. And both of these ladies have extensive experience with case management systems. And during one of our regular Core QM Team meetings, I asked the team, I'm like, hey, what are some potential podcast ideas? And Brittny said, you know what? There are a lot of state voc rehab agencies on a quest right now for a new case management system. Either your state is requesting you to do another request for proposal or you're just like, hey, is there something better out there? So with lots of new players that have entered the market, your case management system is a lifeline. And if it's not functioning optimally, it can really lead to some significant issues. So we just wanted to have a conversation today that can help to guide you through this journey with open eyes. So let's dig in. So of course our listeners always like to know, like how did you people get into VR? Everybody wonders, like what's your story? So I want to hear from each of you about kind of your journey into VR. So Sarah, I'm going to kick it off with you. Sarah: So many of you know Ron Vessell, he's a staple around VR. Ron actually hired me back in the year 2000. I was a very green government accountant just starting out, didn't know what I was getting into, and they took a chance on a new, young professional. And so I did a deep dive early in my career and never looked back. Carol: Very nice, I love that. How about you, Britt? How did you find your way into VR? You came a little different way. Brittny: Yeah, I think it was definitely a unique path. I actually worked in criminal justice at the prison system as a counselor for quite some time. They were privatizing the position, which meant we were kind of losing benefits. We're no longer going to be a state employee. So I started looking around for other counseling positions. And at my time at the prison, I found that there was a lot of individuals with disabilities and a lot of obstacles that we had to address and assist with while we were there. And so when I seen the position at VR, I was very interested in it interviewed. And that's where I got my start about 14 years ago. Carol: And which state was that in? Britt. Brittny: That was in.Indiana. Carol: Yeah. That's cool. I think that's great. So you worked with Teresa? Brittny: Yes. Carol: Very good. Brittny: I always joke and say my four years at the prison. And then I have to clarify when I was working. Carol: I love that. In fact, we had a guest last month that also had come up through the correctional system as well. It was really fun, but that definitely having that skill set behind you coming into VR is super important, really needed. So let's talk a little bit about your work. Both of you do for the QM. Just so our listeners have a little sense. And Britt, I'm going to start with you about that. Like can you give them a little flavor kind of for what you do in this TA world? Brittny: Yeah, as you mentioned I work on the performance team. So really all things performance. But we help agencies address performance related needs. So this can be anywhere from training on performance measures to data analysis on performance data, reviewing policy procedures, internal controls and sometimes even assessing the system impact around performance and seeing how that impacts the reporting pieces. Carol: Yeah, I love our performance team, the stuff you guys do, and you're so good at your analysis and really looking at taking that data and really digging in deep as to what's going on. So it's a very, very important piece of what is happening out there for our VR programs as we're delivering that technical assistance. How about you, Sarah? Sarah: I have the great pleasure of leading the financial arm of the VRTACQM, and understanding that the VR award is the probably the most complex award within the grants management world. It really covers a wide array of skills and knowledge and isn't just financial based, it's also program based. So under the QM, we help agencies sort of manage the grant from the whole life cycle perspective, making sure that all the federal requirements are met, taking a look at individual state requirements, how those two things intersect, and we spend a lot of time, probably the majority of my time is actually spent in the period of performance arena, and specifically as it relates to this topic today with case management service systems. Carol: Excellent. So, Brittny, you had mentioned the issue of people are looking for a new case management system. And I know as of late it feels like we've had at least a half a dozen folks saying, you know, we're doing a new RFP. We either have to for the state or we're going out for a new system. What advice do you have kind of off the bat for people who are considering venturing into this new RFP process? Brittny: Yeah, I think before writing the RFP, I think it's important for the state or the agency to do some research on what systems are out there. A lot of agencies are writing an RFP based on what their current system does, and they end up with a very similar system. The process and all the hard work of getting a new system can be really exciting. It could mean new innovative features and easier case management process, which leads to improved efficiency, improve services and outcomes. You could find a system that would help with documentation times. You can reduce that, and then that way the counselor can spend more time with their participants. So I think just seeing what's out there and what's available to help you write that RFP is huge. Carol: Sarah, how about you? What's your perspective on making sure those fiscal pieces are addressed as they are thinking about RFPing? Sarah: Oh goodness. There's so many perspectives to consider here. I think first and foremost states need to understand period of performance. I feel like that's a term that we make really complicated. And it's really nothing more than just looking at the funding sources that are available and understanding the timeline that agencies can obligate and expend funds. So I think, first and foremost, understanding period of performance. The second key piece really is understanding state requirements. We have a lot of states that aren't either aware of what their state requires, or there are things that are in place that they think is required by the state. And when we start doing a deep dive into what that looks like, sometimes those things really aren't state requirements. It's something that somebody put into place years ago that everybody just thought was what was required. So I think understanding those two things. And then third, I would say understanding what your end game is when you're working with a fiscal and a case management system, and we're looking at just sheer fund accounting and tracking those funds all the way through and then being able to report at the end of that cycle. And so I oftentimes will tell states, if you kind of look at the end game, look at the reporting that's required at the end, it really kind of establishes the things that are necessary along the way in terms of system adaptations, structure, configuration. Carol: So definitely I'm going to tie you two together when a state is going out and they're looking at doing the RFP, you want to really think about your complete process so that you've got all the right team members in place from the get go, which can't just be the program side of your house. And I remember us doing this back in Minnesota as we were going through the requirements. It's like, what are those fiscal people doing here? They're all important. Like you need all the pieces together, talking through how this system is going to work, how you're going to connect to your statewide accounting system. So that becomes really important. Now, I know I was on a call, I want to say within the last three, four months and we had a state say, yeah, we're thinking about RFP for a new system to go into place January 1st. And Brittny, I want to kick this to you. What is a realistic time frame if somebody is considering a new case management system, is it really possible to do that in, uh, maybe eight months or so or not? What do you think is a good timeline? Brittny: I think this really depends on several factors as far as a timeline when considering a new case management system, typically it could take up to six months to develop that RFP. And it's really doing some background homework, seeing what's out there, doing a business process analysis and understanding your own business processes. But typically, I'd say depending on agency size, how many years of converted data you're looking at, converting it into the new system. And I know there's federal requirements, but there's also state requirements that are sometimes even longer than the federal ones. And then also if there's any interfaces. So if you have other systems that are connecting to your current case management system, this is going to make a huge difference, because now you've got a lot of different teams having to help out with the specifications and then also test the system. So you've got to think of their timelines as well. And then lastly just that preparedness piece. So how much work did you do up front on the RFP. How much have you analyzed your business processes. And like Sarah had mentioned, are these things that somebody put into place ten years ago, or are these things that are actually a state policy or a federal policy that you're aligning with? I think the typical timeline that I typically see is around 18 to 24 months for the full implementation once you sign in that contract. But again, that could range short or longer depending on that prep work and then that agency size and things like that. Carol: So eight months is probably a little aggressive. Brittny: Yeah very, aggressive yeah. But optimistic I like it. Carol: I love it. So what are some pitfalls that we want to help our listeners avoid as they're kind of tackling this process? And Sarah, I'm going to kick that to you first. Sarah: First and foremost. And I think the listeners are probably going to see a recurring theme here, as Brittny said, not just taking current system functionality and developing that into a checklist or using that to develop the specifications. I think really sitting down and outlining what are the requirements, what are the things that we're using right now? Where did that come from? And the possibilities going into this process allows a lot of opportunity to think outside the box and think about what are the things that systems currently aren't doing, or things that are requiring a lot more work right now where we could really get creative and do some really cool things. So I think avoiding the pitfall of just not spending that time up front to understand what it is that agencies need, and then also, again, bringing fiscal and program together to understand the requirements from a physical standpoint. A lot of times that is kicked to the finance folks in the House, we're still seeing in a lot of agencies a breakdown or a gap between program and fiscal, and there's a lot of danger and not bringing those two teams together to understand on both sides of the coin, what is it that we need to do? Oftentimes within that space is where a lot of the creative ideas come out and allow greater efficiencies within the agency and more internal controls. Carol: Very good. Britt, what do you think about pitfalls? What are some things that we could help our folks avoid? Brittny: Yeah, I once talked to a chief technology officer and he said the two main reasons why usually a case management system implementation fails is because of fiscal and data validation. So hitting those two pieces very hard, making sure that you're not only converting the data into the system, it's almost like that toy where you've got a round circle and you've got to fit it in the round circle. The data conversion doesn't always work like that, and sometimes you're trying to fit that round circle into a square peg. And that's because the way the systems line up. So making sure that you've got individuals on the front end in different roles, looking at that data and then also testing that RSA 911 to make sure things are mapped correctly and going in correctly before you go into production. At one example I've seen of that is significance of disability. And so one system may calculate significance of disability a little bit differently than another system. And even though they've got everything mapped together, doesn't always go hand in hand and can cause some major issues. The fiscal piece, I think Sarah mentioned that quite a bit, but just making sure that you're doing heavy testing and understanding how the system will work, especially when you go into production. Working in a new system, the biggest ones are dealing with authorizations that already have partial payments on it, draft authorizations, pending payments, amending an authorization, and vendor logic. These are all pieces that may be different in that new system. So making sure you're testing every angle and you're prepared for that transition. I think a third suggestion is just my personal preference would be to avoid over customizing the system. So there's a lot of systems out there that are already available in VR agencies. And so if it works for that VR agency, there's a good chance the majority of the processes are going to work for your agency as well. And sometimes those states like to over customize that system just because they want to have what they've always had. But that ends up being sometimes pretty expensive down the road, because then you're paying for additional testing and maintenance of that customization. So I'd be open minded to changing business processes, or see if you could find your business processes met in a different way and achieving that same result. Carol: Yeah, I like it. I remember when we had our new case management system and it was built. We went in with all our partners, our WIOA partners, and so we had this kind of groovy new system, but it was supposed to meet all these different needs. Well, it gets complicated, but we couldn't forget about our field people because a lot of those folks in the field. So while you're talking to program, you know, a lot of times it's supervisors and different folks are involved. Having those direct field staff, your VR techs and your counselors who are inputting stuff every day and they're like, hey, this weird thing over here, you know, they may not talk techie, but they can explain the stuff that isn't working so well in getting all of those ideas right from them so they can see, hey, they really can help to impact and influence the system is important. Brittny: Definitely. Sarah: You know, Carol, along the lines of what Brittny just shared too, I think there's a caution there in terms of customizations that are in existing systems, whether it's an off the shelf system or a homegrown system. We have a number of agencies that have their own in-house systems. Sometimes there are customizations that work for a particular state or might work for a group of states, but it's not applicable to all states. Again, because we go back to those state requirements. And then sometimes when agencies implement that, it causes some compliance issues because of their own local procurement standards. So asking the question, you know, if they're developing those specifications and not just taking everything from what they're doing or is offered to them currently, but really looking at it with a cursory eye to determine, is this something that we need or we even can use because we're seeing period of performance compliance issues from some system functionalities that are in place that worked for other states that aren't necessarily a one size fits all. Carol: I think one thing I've noticed too, and I just noticed from the periphery, you know, it's really statewide IT systems and the IT groups have been put together. You know, we see that consolidation happening where you may have had your own IT folks that you were dealing with, and now you have a State Department of IT or something. There's some other consolidated area that has put together different processes or requirements. So I think for some folks, if you're used to maybe the old way when you were entering into this process and maybe doing an RFP and you had more control over everything, you may have a little less because you do have now these sort of statewide IT system requirements. And so it's really important to get hooked up with those folks as well, especially for listeners who may have not done this for a while. Maybe, you know, it's been a long minute since you have looked at your case management system, and you were remembering back a decade ago when it was a little easier. You could just do something a little more at the drop of a dime. But I think the benefit that having those statewide IT groups is they have so much experience. And when they're looking at how they really address putting out an RFP and they can have a lot of their expertise to bring to the table to make sure this gets put together really well. You just want to remember that you may have some other things in play that you didn't have a long time ago. Just a thought. Alright, I know Brittny, when we were talking to you, had some ideas on cool stuff and I love cool stuff. Like, you know, if you're...
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VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: From Subminimum to Sustainable - Transforming Employment in the Transportation Industry in Minnesota
06/03/2024
VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: From Subminimum to Sustainable - Transforming Employment in the Transportation Industry in Minnesota
Join us in the studio with Tyler Sadek, Go MN! Project Manager, and Amanda Jensen-Stahl, Director of Strategic Initiatives at Minnesota General, as we explore the transformative efforts of Minnesota's DIF Grant Go MN! This episode delves into innovative strategies designed to transition individuals with disabilities from subminimum wage to competitive, integrated employment. {Music} Amanda: Give them the tools and resources to look at other ways to support employment instead of that 14 (C) certificate. Tyler: So much great work to be done supporting with individuals with disabilities across the country, and we really need people to help implement those innovative ideas so that we can serve these folks even better. This type of work is extremely important, and if you have a good team, I would dare even call this kind of work fun. Amanda: Having that support is just so appreciated because there is a lot of pieces to this. And when you know, hey, I can call up Brandi and Iowa and just kind of say, hey, how are you guys dealing with this? That has just been really fantastic as well. Intro Voice: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow. Carol: Well welcome to the Manager Minute. Joining me in the studio today is Tyler Sadek Go Minnesota project manager. And Amanda Jensen-Stahl, director of strategic initiatives with Minnesota General. So Tyler how goes it in Minnesota? Tyler: Things are going well. I think spring might finally be here, so I'm pretty happy about that. Carol: Yeah, I'm with you on that. I think we had spring, uh, in February and now we're now we're having winter. It's like what? What is happening? Tyler: We're gonna give it another shot with spring. Carol: I know it, it's hysterical. And, Amanda, it's always good to see you. How are you doing? Amanda: I am good, it's so good to see you, too, Carol. Carol: Well, we've been delving into the RSA Disability Innovation Fund grants, and this series is focused on the SWTCIE grants, or sub minimum wage to competitive integrated employment. And the purpose of this round of grants is to increase the opportunity for SWTCIE program participants, which includes students and youth with disabilities seeking subminimum wage employment and potential VR program applicants or VR eligible individuals with disabilities who are employed or contemplating employment at sub minimum wage to obtain competitive integrated employment, also known as CIE. Holy smokes, that's a lot. And I love nothing more than talking with my Minnesota general peeps. You guys always have so much going on. And so for full disclosure for our listeners, before I retired from the state of Minnesota, I was the Assistant commissioner of the Workforce Services, part of the agency. I had the privilege of hiring your director, Dee Torgerson, into her position. And I think the world of Dee and the whole team there. So let's dig in. I'm excited about what you're doing. So, Tyler, I know you had your six month anniversary. Tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and how you came to VR. Tyler: Yeah, so I was working as a restaurant manager, actually, and I volunteered for an organization called Life Track. I'm doing resume reviews, mock interviews, things like that. And then eventually a position opened up in business engagement, and I got hired. And in that role, I was supporting their employment program for people with disabilities as well as their other employment programs. Eventually, from that role, I moved into providing direct services to individuals with disabilities as a placement person, which I really loved. Eventually, another opportunity opened up at an organization called Resource, and I was hired on to help lead a direct appropriation grant for a few years. So I continued to do that, and then eventually I transitioned into an HR position, actually at a construction company called Parsons Electric, where I was responsible for community outreach, including working with VRS and other community organizations, as well as managing a few employee programs at the company. So in that role at Parsons Electric, I got connected to the State Rehabilitation Council, where I served as a representative of business, industry and labor and then eventually served as the chair of that council for a few years. So that was eventually led me to learning about Go MN a little bit. I saw the position opened up, I decided to apply and here I am. It's been quite the journey to this role, but I feel like it's a good culmination of my experience working with employers, doing placement, managing programs and leading others. Carol: That is so cool. Our listeners always like to hear where people come from. It's like no one's journey in is ever clearly straight. It's a long and winding road and you're a fellow placement person. I used to do placement way back in the day. I have like fondness in my heart for that. So that. Oh, very cool. Amanda, how about you? You know, I've known you, but I didn't know about your journey into VR. Amanda: Yes. So I went to school to become an English teacher. And then when I got out of college, I had a hard time finding a job. And so I got a job working with a CRP in Saint Paul. Shout out to Goodwill Easter Seals. And I fell in love with the work. I started doing job placement, job coaching and moved into a manager role where I was overseeing our placement team, our extended employment grant. We started an IPS program, so it was just an awesome, awesome experience. And then in 2015, a position became available at VRS for an extended employment specialist. And I thought, hey, I'm going to jump at this opportunity to use my experience on the CRP side and bring it over to VRS and the state of Minnesota. And from there, I've had a lot of great opportunities. You mentioned WIOA, I came in at the kind of ground level of when that was all starting, and got to build our process for career counseling, information and referral. I started working with our interagency partnerships with DHS, our Medicaid agency, and our special education agency, and then moved into overseeing business engagement, interagency partnerships, and now director of strategic initiatives. So it's been such a journey and just really incredible. And I'm grateful for all of those experiences because I think they all, you know, thinking about this dif grant and going, man, it is all serving us very well. This is kind of a culmination of much of that work. Carol: That is super cool. I didn't know that about your background. Either. And you've done a ton at Minnesota. I always think whenever your name is tied to something, it's going to be stellar. It's going to be terrific. I do, I think the world of you. So, Amanda, can you give us a little snapshot of Minnesota general? Like how many staff do you have in the agency and how many customers do you guys serve? Yes. Amanda: So we have 429 staff across the entire state, 23 field offices. And when we look at our last program year, so the last full program year of 22, we served about 12,919 individuals. We had over 5000 applications. And I'm really excited about our employment outcome rate is up over the last two years. So we're kind of building back from the pandemic, as I'm sure many folks are doing, and we're seeing the numbers of folks applying for our services go up, as well as those employment outcomes going up. So really happy that we're back to those pre-pandemic levels of people we're serving, which is just great news. Carol: That is excellent to hear. I know folks really struggled. The pandemic just like crashed our customers. A lot of them, they were afraid to come out. I mean, they didn't want to be exposed to Covid and all of that. And it really decimated what the VR program was looking like. But we're seeing such a good rebound. You guys have also been rebounding in your numbers of staff too, with your staff vacancy rate. So I know does put a lot of initiatives into place. So you're much you know, I think you're at 20 some percent and I know it's much lower than that. Amanda: Yes, absolutely. Dee and others have done some really great work with our HR department and really being creative and innovative in how we're recruiting staff, retaining staff, looking at all those ways to support staff with onboarding training. And we're really starting to see that dial shift where our vacancy rate is pretty low again. And we're back to kind of that pre-pandemic level. So we're really grateful for all those efforts. And just, you know, really, I know it's something that everyone struggles with, but just really thinking about, okay, how do we make this work and how do we make the state of Minnesota and VR's a really great place to work? Carol: Excellent. I love to hear that. Now, I know Minnesota, you know, kind of shifting to our diff. You know, Minnesota still has a fair number of people who work at or are paid sub minimum wages. So tell us a little bit about the project and what you're hoping to accomplish. And Tyler I'm going to kick that to you first. Tyler: Sure. So this is a disability innovation fund. So we are trying to develop innovative ways to serve people with disabilities in the state. So for this project, we're working with the Institute for Community Inclusion at the University of Massachusetts Boston, or ICI Boston, to pilot what's called progressive employment. So it's a dual customer model, meaning it's meant to serve both employers and job seekers. And it really is meant for people with limited or no work experience in competitive, integrated employment. So what's different about it is it's really meant to help people explore work, doing things like tours, job shadows, work experience, learning more about what work means for them, what their skills are, what their interests are. And this project is also focused in the growing high demand transportation industry in Minnesota. So the hope is to help those that are either working in Subminimum wage or considering working in Subminimum wage, explore opportunities in that transportation industry, and potentially find competitive, integrated employment that's a fit for them and for the employer. The idea is really that everybody is ready for something, and we just need to meet people where they're at, provide the support needed for them to be successful in the community. Carol: I love that. Can you talk a little bit more about the transportation industry, like a little more specificity around that? What does that look like? Yeah, so. Tyler: The transportation industry is huge and it does include transportation and material handling. So we are considering this pretty broadly. But it really I think most people think about, you know, mechanics or drivers, but it's all those positions that support that work as well. So it could be working in an office. It could be working with technology, working with your hands, working with people. But we do think of transportation as very broad. And what's nice about that is for the folks that we're serving, there is a good chance with how broad this industry is that they can find that opportunity that they're looking for. So that was the emphasis in transportation. I know we'll mention Duluth later being a big transportation hub as well. Carol: Yeah, that makes sense, I get that. Amanda, did you have anything you wanted to add to that? Amanda: Yeah, I'll just add a little bit more about just subminimum wage in Minnesota. And Minnesota has historically had a very large number of individuals who have been working in subminimum wage employment. And, you know, when we wrote this grant two years ago now, even in the last two years, things have shifted and changed in ways that are so incredible. And I'm so excited about when we wrote it, we were looking at the numbers and looking at things, and it just has changed so much. So the first year back when we started doing the career counseling information referral process, we had almost 12,000 individuals that we saw that first year for this last year that we have data, we're down to about 4500. So that is a huge, huge change. And then when we look at our pilot location, we are down to like less than 100 people in the pilot location, perhaps even less than 50. And part of that is we're seeing providers just move away from that 14 (C) certificate, even though it's technically still allowable in the state and at the federal level. But I think providers are just saying, you know what, we want to move away from this. And this work really dovetails nicely with lots of other transformation initiatives that have been happening in the state over the last few years to help support providers, give them the tools and resources to look at other ways to support employment instead of that 14 (C) certificate. Lots more to do, of course, but it's just been really exciting to see this work that is just happening right before our eyes. And I think for this grant, we've had to certainly adjust and kind of keep up with those changes as well. Carol: That makes my heart happy because I remember back in the day, more like 14,000 way back when. And I used to actually work at the Department of Human Services, where we did licensing and rate setting and all the different things for the various providers who were day training programs that did use, a lot of them use the 14 (C) certificates. It was kind of the way of life in Minnesota. So that is such a huge move. I had no idea about the numbers. Now that makes my heart really happy. Excellent. Good on you. This is great, you guys. So for our listeners to Minnesota is really a geographically diverse state. I think for some people they think about us. People be like, do you guys have, you know, plumbing and flush toilets? I've had people ask me that. I'm like, seriously, we are not out in the middle of the boondocks, but we do have areas of the state that really are super rural. And from top to bottom, this state, it is hours. It is a long way. If we're going to go from here to International Falls and such. Now, we do have our urban areas and our extremely remote locations, and you guys are taking a really great approach with this project, focusing on northeast Minnesota and spreading out across the state. So how did you guys come to settle on starting up in the Duluth area, and how are those partnerships developed? Amanda: Great question. One of the requirements when we were applying for the grant is you had to pick a industry, and there were a couple different options. And as Tyler mentioned, we decided on the transportation industry. And the reason we did that is because when we looked at where were people already getting jobs at VRS across the state and transportation and material moving was number one over the last few years. So we thought, okay, people are already getting a lot of jobs in that industry. And so we decided that makes sense. Let's do that. And then looking at Duluth, because it really, for those of you who don't know, Duluth is right on Lake Superior. And it is a transportation material moving hub. You see those kind of ships and barges coming in and trains, and there's just there's a lot happening in the Duluth area, but it's also small enough that it felt manageable for us, that we could really leverage some of the amazing partnerships that we already have established in the Duluth area. The Duluth team is amazing because part of this work is really relying on our field team. So that manager and those staff that are in that office know that area. They also have previous experience working on a large federal grant from a few years back. We had the SGA grant, the SGA project, and then just those partnerships of not only employers and transportation partners, but our providers, our employment service providers, our relationship with our county, the waiver case managers, and then our centers for Independent living. And really knowing that, okay, we've got something great happening in Duluth and all the pieces were there. And so that's why we decided we're going to start in Duluth. We're going to get this off the ground, and then we can bring that to other parts of the state and really leverage that team to then help mentor as we then go to other parts of the state. And they are also amazing and willing to be flexible, knowing that this is a demonstration model. We're trying some new things. We want to be innovative. And so while we've tried to kind of lay the groundwork, we know that we're going to make changes and adjustments as we go. And they are right there game to do that along with us. Carol: That makes so much sense now. Why, you know, talking about the transportation history. And then why you picked Duluth? Because Duluth sits on the harbor. It's a lovely location. Like there's major shipping traffic in and out. I hadn't thought about all of that. When you think about the transportation industry, first thing I always come to mind, like semi-trucks, you know, it's the truckers and there you go. But when, as Tyler described it, you know, we're talking so much more broadly. There's a lots of different elements that are all around the transportation industry. That's pretty cool. So I know a lot of our DIF grantees have had struggles and challenges during year one of the grant because, you know, you get notified maybe four days before it's the beginning of the federal fiscal year. And it's like, go and spend all that money right away. And so everybody's been talking about the challenges, and I wanted to find out what kind of challenges you all faced year one and how you have dealt with them and overcome those. And Amanda, I think I'll kick it to you first. Amanda: Thank you. I did mention this, but it really has had a huge impact on how we've thought about this. But the changes in 14 (C) providers and Subminimum wage work, looking at our pilot location, many of the providers have already in the time we applied and in the time we're planning to get this up and running, have already moved away from it. And so that has been a challenge for us to kind of think about, how do we think about those folks who have historically earned subminimum wages, who might be doing other types of work, but it's still not necessarily integrated? And thinking about kind of that definition of contemplating and working with our RSA liaison to kind of work through that to say, hey, we've got a lot of changes in the landscape of this target population and working really closely with liaison to help, you know, maybe kind of adjust how we maybe thought about the population when we wrote the grant and then really thinking about how this project overlaps with much of the existing work that we've done in Minnesota. I mentioned earlier working with our Medicaid agency and our special education agency, and really thinking about how we serve individuals who are receiving a Medicaid waiver and how we're leveraging those relationships with schools and serving youth with the most significant disabilities. And we've spent a lot of work in how we partner with county case managers, our schools and transition programs. And so being very mindful about how progressive employment and this project fits in with that work, and not duplicating or stepping on toes and then thinking about sustainability. So how we can kind of fit the progressive employment in with much of that work that's happening. So that's a few changes around Subminimum wages. I'll pass it over to Tyler to talk about some of the other challenges we faced. Tyler: Yeah, I would only really highlight two. One I think a lot of people...
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VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: DIFing the Path Forward - Iowa's Blueprint for Change Bridges Subminimum Wage to Competitive Integrated Employment
05/01/2024
VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: DIFing the Path Forward - Iowa's Blueprint for Change Bridges Subminimum Wage to Competitive Integrated Employment
Welcome to VRTAC-QM Manager Minute! Today, we're joined by Brandy McOmber, Project Director, Ashley Banes, Counselor Specialist, and Paul Fuller, Counselor Specialist, all representing Iowa General. Our focus is Iowa's Blueprint for Change DIF Grant and its creative use of the collective impact approach. This initiative aims to amplify opportunities for competitive integrated employment through strategic partnerships and pilot programs. Its overarching mission? To phase out sub-minimum wage employment in Iowa and revolutionize the career paths of individuals considering such options. As 14(C) certificate holders decline, many individuals find themselves without employment, often spending their days at home or in day habilitation programs. Stay tuned to learn more about how they're transforming lives with DIF! {Music} Brandy: Making sure that we have a focus across the state, that competitive integrated employment is the first and preferred outcome for all individuals with disabilities. Paul: We want to partner with the CRPs, the school districts, mental health providers, and we want to be able to provide customized employment or ISPY at a much younger age in the high school. Ashley: Our work group has looked at the direct support professional registered apprenticeship that already exists in the state of Iowa, and that's registered, and we're looking at what can we take from that and really kind of DIF it. Paul: We're DIF'ing it. Brandy: who wants to dive in with us and DIF it? Intro Voice: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow. Carol: Well welcome to the manager minute. Joining me in the studio today is Brandi McOmber project director Ashley Banes, counselor specialist, focused on the apprenticeship program, and Paul Fuller, counselor specialist focused on the transition pilot all with Iowa general. So hey, gang, thanks for joining me in the studio today. So a little background for our listeners. I heard this group talk about their DIF project in a recent CSAVR monthly directors meeting, and they were focused on one aspect of the grant that was centered around the IPS project. And in fact, I thought maybe that was the whole thing. And shoot, CSAVR already stole them and stole my thunder. But I learned from talking to the team that there was so much more to their grant to unpack. So we are actually going to not focus on IPS, and we're going to pick up where they left off. Now, I've really enjoyed focusing on the DIF projects from each grant year, and they each have such a unique emphasis, and the ideas that are generated from one state can really be transplanted across the country. So as a reminder to our listeners, this DIF grant series is called the SWTCIE Subminimum Wage to Competitive Integrated Employment. And the purpose of this round of grants is to increase the opportunity for those SWTCIE program participants, which includes students and youth with disabilities seeking subminimum wage employment and potential VR program applicants, or VR eligible individuals with disabilities who are employed or contemplating employment at sub minimum wage to obtain competitive, integrated employment. All right, that was a mouthful. So let's dig in. Now I know our listeners are always super interested about your backgrounds. Like how do people get into VR? How do you even get here? So I'd like to understand each of your journeys into getting into VR. So, Brandy I'm going to start with you. Brandy: Sure, thanks, Carol. To start out, I've worked with vocational rehabilitation services for 16 years now. Originally, I became interested in VR, as I previously worked at a facility with Transition Youth who were adjudicated as delinquent or CHINA or in other words, Child In Need of Assistance. So these were youth that had, you know, a lot of things to overcome in terms of transitioning into the world of work. So my specific role there was to help them come up with a plan. So in other words, where are they going to work? Where are they going to move out as they age out of the system? And through that process, I was able to interact with vocational rehabilitation in the state of Iowa. And it really got me interested in how much more of an impact I could have. So I applied and they accepted me. And then when I became a VR counselor, I really got interested in the other components of the broader state level work and applied and became a policy resource manager. And that gave me a much broader understanding of where we're at in the system, uniquely as a VR entity. With that coming into the DIF grant that we'll talk about today, it was really kind of the next level or the next step in the journey of moving from just our internal policy to how we can affect systems change throughout the state of Iowa. So that's really kind of my background. Carol: That's excellent. And that really positioned you well for being project director on this DIF. Very cool. So Ashley, let's go to you. How did you meander into VR. Ashley: Absolutely. And I think meandering is a great way of honestly describing it. I have worked within the state for about 14 years now, but I actually started within the Department of Corrections, and I hung out there for the first ten years of my career. Within that, the first six years, I ran our domestic violence program and carried a caseload of about 1000 clients when I did that. And the last four years that I was there, I really started focusing on mental health barriers, substance abuse barriers. And so that led me into a very specific program, which was our drug court program, and that is a prison diversion program. So that is the last stop somebody can kind of redeem themselves in before they get sent to prison. And the reason is I got super interested in that. My passion comes from actually very personal experience. And I lost my mom to suicide when I was 18 due to her severe mental health. So when that happened, that really left me asking questions of what supports are out there. And that really opened my eyes to see the lack of said supports in our community and in our state. So I hung out with in drug court for about four years, ran that program, and I started wanting to branch out because I was helping this certain population. And I was like, I know there's more out there. I know that I could be doing more. And I just felt like I was needed in more places. So a Voc Rehab counselor position opened and, the same county actually that I was running our drug court program in so I took a shot and applied for that and was offered that position. And so I jumped on that, I was a Voc Rehab counselor, just carrying a normal caseload. for about a year, just over a year, and within that year is where I got into the IPS program that you touched on earlier that we already kind of talked about in our monthly meeting that we had. From there, the DIF grant counselor specialist position came up and I was like, this is really a way for me to take what I'm good at and the areas that I don't have a lot of experience in, like for example, being part of a grant was not anything I'd ever done in my life before, but I really wanted to have that experience. So I was like, this is my shot. So I applied for it and I honestly thought in my interview I was like, there's no way I got this. There's no way this is the worst interview of my life. And lo and behold, I got offered the position. So that's really kind of what got me in here. And being able to be kind of part of that top level systems change and being able to provide that support to my coworkers who are struggling with certain areas, that's really what drives me, and being able to take my passion and apply that. So that's how I meandered in here. Carol: Well, first up, I'm very sorry about your mom. Ashley: Thank you. Carol: In that situation, your background, I can imagine they snatched you up in one second because your background is so uniquely important to VR and having the mental health challenges that many of our customers face, that's been tough for counselors to handle and to work with. So I can see why you've been a valuable add to the team for sure. So, Paul, last but not least, how did you come into VR? Paul: Meandering might be a good way to say it too, but my passion and my background here really lies in transition. And so I started my transition journey, I guess, in the Waterloo Community Schools here, the local school district, and I worked with individuals with disabilities in a transition program that partnered with Voc Rehab. And so I had 4 or 5 years of experience and then decided to apply. Then with VOC Rehab when a counselor position came open. That's been about ten and a half years ago. Best move I ever made. Love working with Iowa Voc Rehab. My coworkers here and everybody we get to help. So over those ten years, over the past ten years, I actually oversaw two transition programs in the local community where we assisted individuals with disabilities all the way from freshman through their transition into adulthood, all the way up to age 25. That was really interesting and fulfilling to me to see the growth that you would get from students and that you would see them obtain their goals and really achieve milestones for themselves that that were just amazing, watching them grow and learn and become adults, so to speak. And then, like Ashley, I saw the position with the DIF grant come open. Did not think I was going to get it after my interview. You know, those are the type of interviews that you end up getting the job when you think you bombed. But very fortunate to be here, part of a great team. Yeah, about 17 years total in transition, a little over ten here with Voc Rehab. And really looking forward to the things that we have going for us for the DIF grant. Carol: That's good stuff. I always love understanding how people get into VR, because we often come from a very different journey and then evolve and come into this role. I can see why all three of you are on this grant. That is amazing. Brandy, can you give people a little picture of Iowa General? Like kind of how many staff are in the agency? How many people do you serve? I know Iowa is my neighbor, but I always think of, you know, a lot of cornfields, are there, any big metro areas? What's the lay of the land down there? Brandy: Iowa, we currently have approximately 250 staff within VR. So decent size, but definitely a lot smaller than, you know, some of our bigger states like Texas, we are obviously a separated state. So we have Iowa General, and then the Iowa Department for the Blind, and we work closely with them in partnership. We do have some metro areas that are around the state, like Des Moines is one of our major metro areas. We also then have very rural areas where we see major needs in terms of a lack of transportation of available providers. So it's really interesting in that, you know, it sounds like it's all rural, but we definitely have a really good mixture of those different urban versus rural areas, which is interesting, but also was perfect for a grant because we can take a look at how we're affecting change in those major areas, and really understanding that we need to have a different approach for different areas in the state of Iowa and in terms of individuals, we serve for Iowa general alone in program year 2022, which would be July 1st, 2022 through June 30th, 2023. We served approximately 7900 potentially eligible students, as well as about 13 almost 14,000 eligible clients, for a total of almost 22,000. So decent numbers, but once again, definitely not as broad as some areas. For transition alone, we served around 14,000, a little over that, which would be a combination of that almost 8000 potentially eligible and, you know, 6500 eligible transition students. So we have a decent amount of clients that we serve. And we're very focused on transition in the state of Iowa. So we like to really push different transition programs. As Paul had mentioned, we have a lot of what we call TAP programs, Transition Alliance Programs that we've spoken nationally about as well, but definitely an emphasis on transition as well. So that's kind of the makeup of our state. Carol: I like it, it's bigger than I thought. I didn't realize that. So that is good. I know when I was reading your project narrative and you had sent that, now that I know you wrote it in six weeks or less, Holy smokes, it was really good and I can totally see why RSA said, yeah, we're funding this project really well written. And you titled it The Iowa Blueprint for Change. And I was very intrigued by all of the research. You looked at a report that the US Government Accountability Office did, or they often are known as the GAO, and they had written a report back in 21 and submitted it to Congress about the 14(C) programs. I thought that was interesting. And you also had another report that was by the Advisory Committee on Increasing Competitive Integrated Employment. So you wove in these pieces to kind of lay the picture of what was happening in Iowa and how that aligned. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because I think it's interesting to note what your state is facing regarding sub minimum wage and kind of the lay of the land. We know over the course of many years across the country, some states have now kind of banned sub-minimum wage. And other people, they're all in different places on that. So can you kind of weave that together a little bit? Brandy: Absolutely. I would preface it to say that, yes, we definitely made a late decision for applying for the grant, but it was absolutely a community effort. We really needed to rely on community members from different agencies and groups and entities to do it, because we decided so late. So I really need to give credit to those community members. That really helped us, because without them, the complexity of what we wanted to do would never be achieved in terms of an application. So there's really a couple of different reasons for the name that we selected for Iowa Blueprint for Change, and the name itself was actually selected by one of the community members that assisted us in writing it, because as we were kind of dumping data into a Google document, that would help us to really outline what every agency that was participating, what their thoughts would be, and what they see as the needs. We really identified that through the reports that you mentioned. It would really give us that blueprint to move forward. And so there's a couple of different reasons. Like I said, for the name, first of all, the report from the Government Accountability Office or GAO, as they're typically known, was really about identifying 32 factors that they had indicated that really influenced the transition of people from different environments like subminimum wage into competitive, integrated employment. So those 32 factors really range from things such as what is the individual's family or their own unique perspective in terms of what could happen. So what are their fears? What is the information that they know? What state policies are available within the state to kind of have some teeth, if you will, into making sure that employment first, for instance, is a focus. And also what is the local economy looking like. So those factors helped give us that blueprint. And to be honest, many of the factors that they mentioned really hold true in Iowa, where even though we don't have a large number of 14(C) certificate holders or that sub-minimum wage certificate holders, we recognize that we didn't have a lot. We have a handful, maybe five left. But the broader impact or the broader issue that we run into is that when those sub-minimum wage entities shut down, it really just meant a shift for those individuals not into work, but to sitting at home or to attending adult daycare, or the primary reason was going into day habilitation. And so we knew that that was a much, much broader issue, that when we have thousands and thousands of individuals in day habilitation, that some of which have employment, but many of which do not have competitive, integrated employment, we really knew that we needed to utilize that information as a blueprint to affect change systemically. In the state of Iowa, I would say the second reason that we really wanted to utilize the name Iowa Blueprint for Change was because we came across information related to the Collective Impact Forum, and that's really a cross sector framework that has a belief that if you bring a large number of individuals collectively together, they can make a really broad impact and advance equality if they're working together. So we wanted to utilize that model of collective impact to really focus on what can we have individuals and we're talking individuals from people with lived experience to their parents to parent support groups, educators, community providers, you know, a number of individuals coming together and then separating out the work, saying, how could we get this done in workgroups? So through that, we wanted to create what we would call a blueprint of what do we need to do systemically, like at the policy level, what do we need to do at the agency level? All of those agencies that really have a stake in the game for, or funding employment for individuals with disabilities. What do we need to do at a local, maybe support level, where there's these groups that are specific to people with disabilities, what could they do to affect change and then all the way down to the individual level. So when we come together, we can start to develop that blueprint and say as an individual representing vocational rehabilitation, for instance, I know that we need to commit to if we learn through this grant that, for instance, community providers don't have enough funding, what can we commit to in an actual document that we call our blueprint that would ensure that we have committed to making that change? So we would have these series of blueprints that would really help us to drive and have everyone involved commit to that systems level all the way down to the individual level change. So that really it was a twofold idea in terms of the blueprint, and it really brought together all of those individuals, like I mentioned, to make sure that they're committed. Because if we go into this, we knew that if we didn't have the support of all those other agencies and individuals and really show the face of the people that this change would impact, then we're going to be kind of dead in the water. We're not going to be able to move forward, if you will. So that's really the name that research. Also, that second report from the advisory committee was really also touching on the current atmosphere in Iowa and contributed to that blueprint, because we have made major strides in Iowa to move towards employment, we still face a number of challenges, like a lack of adequate training and support that can build capacity, professional competence across all levels of service provision. We have a lack of or we really did have a lack of a solid base of employment services grounded in evidence based practices. So all of these things combined were things that we knew we needed to utilize as a blueprint to really move the needle, if you will. Carol: Yeah, I really enjoyed that part of the narrative, I did. Because it was so interesting and I thought about that kind of the lost group, you know, you think, okay, 14(C)'s are going away, this is great. But then there's a whole group of people, like you said, they're sitting at home. So we're missing the boat because they didn't move on into...
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VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: CTPIE is reshaping employment in Connecticut! Transitioning people from subminimum wage to competitive integrated employment
04/01/2024
VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: CTPIE is reshaping employment in Connecticut! Transitioning people from subminimum wage to competitive integrated employment
Today, we're thrilled to have Lynn Frith, Education Consultant from the Bureau of Rehabilitation Services at Connecticut General, in the studio. Discover how CTPIE, fueled by the RSA SWITCIE DIF Grant, is revolutionizing disability employment by shifting individuals from subminimum wage to competitive integrated jobs. With a focus on family input and multi-agency collaboration, CTPIE is at the forefront of innovating employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities. {Music} Lynn: We ended up branding the SWITCIE Grant here in Connecticut as CTPIE. The Connecticut Pathways to Integrated Employment. Most importantly, individuals and family members, they have a strong voice in every step of the way that we are taking here in Connecticut. I love what I do, and I was very in tune with this population. I care a lot about this population. I have always believed competitive integrated employment is the way to go and individuals have that right to be able to work. Intro Voice: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow. Carol: Well welcome to the manager minute. Joining me in the studio today is Lynn Frith, education consultant with the Bureau of Rehabilitation Services in the Aging and Disability Services Department. So for short, that means you're with Connecticut General. So Lynn, how are things going in Connecticut? Lynn: Well, first of all, thank you, Carol, for inviting me to this podcast. I'm really looking forward to our conversation this morning. Connecticut, we're busy, we're jumping, we're moving in grooving. Carol: I love it. Yep. You're working with Dave and Kathy and all those guys. I'm like, you are all small but mighty. I love what's going on there. Lynn, just so our listeners know, I've had the good fortune to meet and work with you through some of our other technical assistance work that I do with Connecticut General. And in fact, for full disclosure to our listeners, Lynn and I were chatting the other day about something completely different and this topic of the DIF came up and you were bubbling over with excitement and I'm like, oh my gosh, we have to do a podcast. So for our listeners, I featured several of the Disability Innovation Fund Career Advancement Project grants, and now I'm switching over because each year there's been a different focus. I'm switching over to talk about the DIF subminimum wage to competitive integrated employment projects, or it's called SWITCIE for short. So I know we love our acronyms. RSA’s focus for this round is they want to increase the opportunity for those SWITCIE program participants, students and youth with disabilities seeking subminimum wage employment and potential VR program applicants or VR eligible individuals with disabilities who are employed or contemplating employment at sub minimum wage to obtain competitive integrated employment. And so to achieve that purpose, the projects that were funded under this grants going to create innovative models, and they're hoping to have folks identify strategies for addressing those challenges associated with access to competitive integrated employment. Things like transportation and supports provide integrated services that support competitive integrated employment, support integration into the community, and identify and coordinate those wraparound services. So this is super exciting. I know Connecticut's always on the cutting edge of cool things. So let's dig into your approach. Now Lynn, why don’t you start out telling our listeners a little bit about your journey into VR, I know folks are always interested, like, how do people come? And I know you have a cool path as well. Lynn: Well, Carol, It is an interesting story in my opinion. I started dating who is now my current husband back in college, and his parents were both deaf and he refused to interpret any of my conversations with his parents. And he said, you want to date me? You need to learn ASL American Sign Language. So once I graduated with my bachelor's degree, I then took sign language interpreting courses, and I ended up learning the language. I fell in love with the language, and I got my first job at the American School for the Deaf out of college, working in doing placement. And the American School for the Deaf at that time was a vocational community rehabilitation provider for the Bureau of Rehabilitation Services. So once a position at Connecticut, BRS became available for a rehabilitation counselor for the deaf. My co-workers encouraged me to apply. And here we go. 20, almost 24 years later, I've been with Connecticut BRS. Carol: That is so cool. I love this story. Everybody finds their way and just unusual, umm, places. And I think that is awesome. Can you give us a little bit of an overview as well about Connecticut General, like how many staff are in the agency and how many customers do you generally serve? Lynn: So we have around 150 staff currently. Just like many other states, we are struggling with getting staff on board and maintaining staff. So that is a current priority for us. And right now we're serving approximately 5500 consumers each year. Carol: Wow, that sounds good. I know Connecticut too, you know, I was thinking a lot of those East Coast states, you're small, but you are small but mighty and serving a good group of folks with a small group of people. I want to also get a sense of how many people in Connecticut are really kind of covered under that 14C certificate. Lynn: That number is a little bit harder to be able to get an accurate number on. From what we can tell. And how I came to this number is tracking that annual career counseling and information referral. And we have about 850 individuals still receiving subminimum wage in Connecticut. Carol: Wow. It's still a pretty significant number of folks. I know Minnesota, where I'm from, had been working on this for a long time, but I think we still have folks more in the thousands. So I'm really glad you guys are tackling this project. So let's talk about your proposal. Can you give us an overview of that grant proposal you all submitted? And I think you guys have a really cute name. Lynn: So I'll share the name first. Because it tends to get a little bit tongue twisty. We ended up branding the SWITCIE grant here in Connecticut as CTPIE, so that would stand for the Connecticut Pathways to Integrated Employment, and we applied for the SWITCIE grant and were awarded it back in September of 2022. Our planning year began on October 1st of 2022 and we hit the ground running. We developed a partner workgroup, and that workgroup consists of all of our other state agencies who we partner with, as well as the workforce investment boards within the state school systems, community rehabilitation providers. We have some 14C key employers who sit on the partner workgroup, most importantly individuals and family members. They have a strong voice in every step of the way that we are taking here in Connecticut. Carol: So what are you guys hoping to accomplish with your grant? Lynn: As you know, this is a demonstration model grant, and we took that first planning year. And from our partner workgroup we then developed four subgroups. Those four subgroups were the pathways and business partners, individualized supports, messaging and outreach, training and TA. And we asked our partner workgroup members to refer members of their agencies, departments, their staff to be able to work with us on those subgroups and those individuals who served. And we met like twice a month for approximately nine months. So they really were committed to this project. They helped us develop, okay, what services should be looking for and how do we get there? We have strong commitments from employers in the state of Connecticut who recognize that hiring individuals with significant developmental and disabilities is the way they want to go. The messaging and outreach group that led us to, okay, we really need to brand what our SWITCIE grant is. So that's how we came up with CTPIE. We came up with a logo. They helped us develop a website. It helps us in terms of our outreach to individuals, outreach to school systems, and how we go about recruiting individuals for CTPIE. Our goal for CTPIE is, and these are the numbers that we stated in our application for our youth, we're hoping to get 356 individuals enrolled in CTPIE so they can be youth who are still in school, receiving special education services, or have recently exited from special education up to and including their 24th year, and they have to be contemplating Subminimum wage for the very first time. So you'll see that that's our larger bucket of individuals that we're hoping to serve under this grant. Our second population that we're looking at serving is 114 individuals who are adults who are currently earning subminimum wage. And that is a little bit more of a tricky population for us to get enrolled in CTPIE. These are individuals that have been in Subminimum wage for probably some period of time. They have developed friendships there. They love their work. They're used to working at that location. They know what's expected of them. Family members, they're viewing this as my loved one has a safe place to go to 35 hours a week. They have the transportation built in, so that's a higher mountain for us to climb, to be able to encourage those individuals to say, hey, come on over to CTPIE and try out competitive integrated employment. Carol: So how do you address that challenge with the group? And I know that group really well. I used to work in a day training center in Minnesota years ago, and I understand that family deep. They form bonds with the staff and their loved one does, you know, and it's really hard to break through that. So what are you trying to do to kind of help bridge this? Lynn: So we're very fortunate here in the state of Connecticut. We contracted with the University of Maryland, and they are able to assist us with providing training and technical assistance. So one of the ways that we're outreaching to this population is by contacting 14C key employers who are currently in the process of sunsetting their 14C certificate. We felt that we wanted to really reach out to those employers first because they've already made this decision. So now what? Let's help them transform. Let's help those individuals decide, okay, what's next after this subminimum wage closes, what are the opportunities available to me? And honestly, we have determined has been our best approach. So we've spent most of our time right there. We're still early on in the grant to be enrolling individuals. We just started enrolling folks as of October 1st of 2023. Currently, we only have two adults, but we aren't giving up. Carol: Well, you got to start somewhere. You know, you start with one and then the second one. But I think you're smart in your approach, especially with the 14C providers that are looking at sunsetting that. Because that's a hurdle too. You know, you can kind of have a little bit of resistance in the backdrop going on, even though maybe face forward, they seem like they're on board with you. They may not be as much as you think. So that is really good. What other challenges have you faced to date? Because I know every grantee that I've talked to talks about that first year, like there's always a ton of challenges and things going on and I'm sure you guys were no different. What kind of challenges have you guys faced this first year? Lynn: Well, we are having more success with the youth population. We have enrolled 29 youth, and really what we're hoping with that population is to as we move forward, a number of them are already in plan. They're receiving benefits counseling. We're in the process of still developing the specific CTPIE services. We're hoping to develop financial literacy. We're almost ready to go to contract for that. Family and peer mentoring. Those are the two categories that have presented as our biggest struggles right now, and that is for that youth population as well as the adult population. And we're hoping, right now we're in the process of developing, So all of the individuals who are enrolled in CTPIE, we're going to start reaching out to their family members to get them together, let's get together, What's been successful about CTPIE? We want to develop a grassroots group for them to be able to walk through struggles with other family members. How did you get the funding? What does your DDS budget look like? Here's the VOC rehab and here's what VOC Rehab can do for you. And how can we get these two agencies to be able to work together? We are very fortunate in the state of Connecticut that we have excellent partnerships with our Developmental Disability Services Agency and our state Department of Education, and all three agencies are working very well together to be able to serve this population within this grant. Carol: I think you couldn't do it if you didn't have that relationship with those other agencies, because all of that funding is so intricately interwoven. And so if you're not all kind of hand in glove working together, it will make it so much harder. So you're taking a great approach with that. I know you also are taking a really cool approach with the counselors that you have dedicated to this project. Talk about that training you're all going through. I really was intrigued by this. Lynn: So as you mentioned, Connecticut is small but mighty. We have three regions. So we have our north, south and western regions, and we have one CTPIE counselor in each of the regions who will be working with CTPIE consumers. We also have a project coordinator, myself, who is the director of the grant, and we have a vocational rehabilitation supervisor that supervises the CTPIE counselors. We have all gone through Charting the Life course. We have become ambassadors. This, I felt was very important for all of us to be able to go through this training so that we are speaking the same language as our DDS agency. This language will then translate over to the consumers that we're meeting with and the family members. It's very important for us that they feel that sense of identity in terms of, okay, no matter which agency I'm going to, we're going to be talking about the same things. They're going to recognize me as an individual with a significant disability, and we're going to be working on the same things. And that's going to be to promote competitive integrated employment. Carol: I love that. I think that was super, super smart. And I know we've talked a bit about your, you know, building and leveraging all of these different relationships that you have, which is great. And I think it maybe is almost a little easier in a smaller state as well to build that stronger coalition. How did you build that relationship and get connected with the state special ed directors? Because I know you did some work around that. That has been real helpful to the project. How did you go about that? Lynn: Well, I have been very fortunate in my career here with the Bureau of Rehabilitation Services, and I've had different focus areas as a staff person working in central office, and I became pretty good friends with one of the contacts in the state Department of Education. She has my position under the Bureau of Special Education. So her and I, as soon as we got the SWITCIE grant, we started talking about, okay, how can we get this information out to the schools? How can we encourage students and families to enroll in CTPIE? And honestly, she's like, Lynn, whatever you need. I'm here to be able to assist you. One of the approaches that we have is that, and I know sending out letters is not the best way to communicate with folks, but we wanted to make sure that folks were getting at least the basic information of CTPIE. So part of our marketing was to develop using the letterhead and the logo, to be able to send out letters to all of the students who are exiting, who are eligible for DDS, that are exiting in June of 2024. So I made sure that my contact at the state Department of Education had those template letters. We emailed them to all of the special ed directors, so they had a copy of the letters that were being sent to students, and those letters were mailed out at the beginning of September. So we emailed the information out to the special ed directors the third and fourth week of August. So as they were starting their school year, they would get this information. And our hope was because the special ed teachers are the trusted source for the students and the families, once they got this letter at home, they'd be like, huh, what's this? Who's reaching out to me? So the special education teachers would be able to say, great opportunity. We got this as well. And we strongly encourage you to enroll in CTPIE. We also emailed the link to our website and I'll do a little shameless plug here. It is CTPIE.org, and I encourage all of the listeners to be able to click on our link and look at a little bit more about what we're doing here in the state. We also had the ability to work with our marketing company to do some videos. So we did a video specifically for special educators and family members, and we also had one of our DDS, Self-advocates. He did a video encouraging individuals with IDD and their family members to try out competitive integrated employment. Carol: I liked that I had a chance to go out to your website, so I did watch all the videos and saw how you had structured that site to kind of target different audiences that were going to be impacted by this project. I thought that was really good. So in your work with this marketing team, I know folks nationwide, they're trying different ways. I know you said sending letters, do you have strategies developed, like to use different means of communication technology, whatever. As you're working through this project, what are you guys thinking about? Lynn: So after we sent the letters to the special educators, we actually did get a number of emails back saying, hey, we want to know more, which was absolutely fabulous. The state of Connecticut, they also do a back to school event in September, and we were invited to set up a table at that event. And when they did their opening remarks, they also did a slide on the PowerPoint to all of the educators in the room about CTPIE with just some bullet points, explaining who we are, what we do, and the fact that we had a table outside. So we had a lot of foot traffic from the schools that attended the back to school event. And so a lot of questions were raised. We were able to take time to be able to walk special educators through who we are and what we do. We also get lists from the Department of Developmental Services for all the students who are exiting each school year, and those lists., it contains the information about where these students attend school. So we're able to reach out to those schools and say, hey, I'm the CTPIE counselor, and I would love to be able to get together with you to speak more about CTPIE. We would love to be able to do an individual and parent night if that would work for your students. So it was a lot easier getting that connection to our schools, the special educators. Carol: That is good. I was going to ask about that. If the CTPIE counselors were going out to the schools, because I know that boots on the ground is always super important, if you can get at the local teachers and really get them excited and get the administration in all of that on board, you have an easier time to...
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VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: DIF and California DOR - Discover how California’s Department of Rehabilitation is revolutionizing job readiness through a sector-specific strategy
03/01/2024
VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: DIF and California DOR - Discover how California’s Department of Rehabilitation is revolutionizing job readiness through a sector-specific strategy
Mark Erlichman is in the studio today, Deputy Director of the VR Employment Division with the California Department of Rehabilitation. Learn how this DIF Grant innovates by aligning services with industry needs, not location, and creating targeted support in tech and more. They also combined the Career Index Plus with the artificial intelligence program SARA to create customized Individualized Plan for Employment (IPE) portfolios. Operational in just three months! #Innovation #DisabilityEmployment #SectorStrategy. {Music} Mark: You know, we can continue to complain about all the additional reports and data, but if the payoff is worth it because it's something you want and need it to do, it becomes a much easier grant to write and a much easier effort to justify and support. I think the counselors and their staff should drive the program. They're the ones that work with the consumers in our businesses. They're the ones who understand what's going on way better than I would sitting in my office on the third floor in Sacramento. I'm happy to be a conduit and connect people or anybody or has any questions at all about our project. We know collectively, the VR program is so much smarter than any one individual State. Intro Voice: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow. Carol: Welcome to the Manager Minute. Joining me in the studio today is Mark Erlichman, Deputy director, VR Employment Division with California Department of Rehabilitation. That is a mouthful. So welcome Mark. How are things going in California? Mark: Well it's going well as always. We have interesting times when the state budget comes out. So we're looking forward to the next week. But all in all, I think we're very proud of the work that we're doing. And I think we're really where we need to be as a program. Carol: Well of course, and you're working with Joe and I love Joe, but Joe is like, go, go, go, go, go. So I'm sure you guys are running on that treadmill at top speed. Mark: Yes, you know him very well, and it's exciting to work with Joe because it's never a dull moment. And the more progressive we can get, the more supportive he tends to be. So it does give us an awful lot of incentive to continue to be creative and push the envelope. Carol: That's very cool. Well, I want to give you a little nugget of what has happened since February of 22, when you recorded a podcast with me. It was our very first one we did in the series on Rapid Engagement, and I have to tell you, it was our most downloaded podcast we've ever done by like triple. It was wild, and I feel like that podcast was the beginning of a little bit of a revolution. On the rapid engagement topic. I was super excited about that, and so I wanted to let you know that when I think about California VR, I always think about how innovative you guys are. And I'm really excited to talk about the Disability Innovation Fund Career Advancement Project. And so in the fall, I did a series of three with three of the other programs, and I couldn't get you. I kept trying, and Karen Grandin, project officer at RSA, is like, have you talked to California yet? I've said, I'm trying to get Mark, so thanks for being on. I really appreciate it. I just want to give a little recap to our listeners, because they may have forgotten a little bit about kind of why this particular DIF grant came about. And the grant activity here for the Career advancement is geared to support innovative activities aimed to improve the outcomes of individuals with disability. And these were funded back in 2021, and they were intended to identify and demonstrate practices supported by evidence to assist VR eligible individuals with disabilities, including previously served VR participants in employment who reenter the VR program to do the following things. They were looking at advancing in high demand high quality careers like science, technology, engineering and math. All that STEM stuff. Entering career pathways and industry driven sectors through pre apprenticeships and registered apprenticeships, improving and maximizing competitive integrated employment and reducing reliance on public benefits. And I remember at that time too looking at when they published the announcement, they had some really kind of disturbing data on what was happening with our VR program. So the timing was perfect. And of course, you all jumped right on the bandwagon and put something in. So let's just dig in and talk about your grant. So, Mark, would you remind our listeners about your story and how you came to VR? People are always interested, like, where'd you come from and what's your role there? Mark: Thank you. And I appreciate the summary of the innovation grant. So we did see these as a phenomenal opportunity to look at work we wanted to do and then just expand on it. And it really was up my alley. I actually started my career back in the mid 90s, 1994 to be exact, as a rehab counselor, and I worked as a rehabilitation counselor in a fairly rural area working with migrant farm workers with the transition age, population supported employment and individuals that were exiting the prison system and were still justice involved. And I really got the opportunity to learn to love my job and to recognize and realize how complicated and how wonderfully difficult doing this job correctly can be, but how rewarding it is, particularly when you see individuals who did not believe in themselves, begin to believe in themselves, and to really build themselves up and move themselves forward. So as I moved up, for some reason, I kept getting other opportunities and got promoted a couple of times and worked my way up within the Department of Rehabilitation here in California. Since 1994, I think I've had nine different jobs, most recently June of 2019. So six months, kind of before Covid was even a thing, I took on the role of the Deputy Director responsible over our field operations. So I work with our 13 regional districts, and we work with all individuals, with the exception of the blind/visually impaired who were served out of a different division. But everyone else, including our business services and our student services, are served out of our division here and very fortunate to have this opportunity. And like you mentioned, lots and lots of pressure, both from above and from below. I have about 1400 staff who have really done a remarkable job in continuing programs and services. Even through the Covid pandemic. We actually served over 134,000 people last year, which is 30,000 more than we served even before Covid. So people came back. And our staff have done a remarkable job in serving them. And then pressure from above, with Joe really saying, if we don't step up, if we don't do a better job in customer service, and serving the public, then we don't really deserve to exist as a program. And so we take that seriously as well. So I've been very fortunate that I've had a good career here in the department, but I'm also very grateful to work with the teams that I've been able to work with. Carol: It's very cool. I always knew you guys were part of the big four, because I always think about California and Texas, Florida and New York as the four biggest VR programs out of the 78, so there's a lot of added pressure to that. The numbers are just exponentially so much bigger. That is wild. But I think your experience leads you to what you did with writing this grant. So give us a little bit of overview about the grant, the proposal you wrote, and what you were hoping to accomplish. Mark: The premise of the grant really was that expertise in careers and understanding sectors can be just as valuable as their expertise in disability and in other areas. As a counselor, one of the things I mentioned, I have a variety of consumers that I work with and a variety of ages, disabilities, ethnicity, gender. There are a lot of variability. The main thing they had in common was their zip code. They all lived in the proximal area that was near my office, and that's how I got to work with them. And I began to notice is that being able to work with a lot of different individuals, with a lot of different vocational goals, I had to start learning about how a teacher or a butcher or a nurse got a job, which is widely different. How a teacher gets a job is nothing like how a butcher gets a job. So each time I had to try to figure out, well, how do I get information? This is pre-internet, but I think it's still applicable now. I actually had to go talk to teachers and talk to nurses. And I went to talk to a butcher at a grocery store because the only butchers I knew were at the grocery store, and they told me, no, don't have your consumer come here, apply for jobs here. So 60 miles away, we have something called Harris Ranch, which is one of the largest beef providers in the country, and they hire somewhere between 50 and 60 new butchers every year. And if you get a job there and you get trained there, you can really work anywhere else. And I go, wow, if I wouldn't have asked, I wouldn't have known. And the other thing that I realized is I had two consumers who wanted to be teachers, forget their disability, they had way more in common with each other because of their vocational goal and their career goal. Then somebody with the same disability, same age and same zip code. And so it really made sense. So it maybe makes sense to align our expertise and our caseloads based on something other than proximity. So the premise behind our grant application was, let's align our caseloads and have staff and dedicated teams that are specific to industry sectors that can work with individuals regardless of where they are in the state, regardless of their zip code, regardless of their disability, but that have the same vocational goal because those counselors in those teams, they can work with the industries and understand how industry hire and recruit and retain people and help our consumers mentor them and support them in getting jobs in that area. The other reason behind the application was the feedback we got from our businesses, and I don't know how many of our VR programs have had business satisfaction surveys for our business customers, but the feedback we've gotten regularly and that we had three in-person sessions, focus groups with our business partners, and we have an employer or business survey. Almost universally what we hear, we hear two things. One, you don't understand our business, and two, you're not sending us consumers that are ready for employment. And so understanding that we can align other than by zip code, and we need to better understand our businesses. That's how we arrived at the premise for this grant. And really the grant application that we work with our partners at San Diego State to put together what apparently turned out to be a competitive application was that we were going to create sector specialist teams that included a counselor and a business sector consultant that would be located in areas where there's a high concentration of that sector, for example, information technology in the San Francisco Bay area, biotechnology in the Los Angeles area. And so they would have contact with those industries and work with those business leaders and go to industry events, learn how those industries hire people, and then come back and provide that information and support to individuals that are seeking careers in those fields. We have five teams that are supporting six different sectors. They're working with people all over the state. So we have a lot of remote work with our consumers. We use Zoom and other technologies to keep in touch with our consumers. We use local resources because we still have local offices, but their primary counseling and guidance comes from people who really, really, truly understand the needs of the industry and how people get jobs in those industries. Carol: I love this idea. In fact, Jeff, my producer for the podcast, we talked after we visited with you yesterday a little bit and we went, this is cool because when you think about that, and I never was a counselor, but I could empathize with our counselors. They would talk about it. You know, you have to understand all of these occupations. And it's difficult because there's all these nuanced things that you aren't going to necessarily always remember, because maybe you place somebody in that industry a year ago, so you're not remembering all the little fine points to it. But if you keep within those sectors, I would think that people could really feel good about it. And I was curious how your staff are feeling about these sector specific teams, because I would think for me, you'd have a rich level of knowledge, you'd feel super competent, you would really have this great perspective and ability to help people in a very deep way. So how are your staff responding to it? Mark: They're thrilled. There's 1400 staff that work in our division, and we have very small cohort working on this. So we have five counselors. We have three business sector specialists and a manager. And they push the envelope. They ask for things that I wouldn't even have thought of a year ago that based on their experience, they want to try out. This team is so enthusiastic about their jobs that I'm hearing from business leaders that are saying, we're so glad they think that the counselor that they're working with is not just a resource, but they feel like that's somebody that they want to steal away from us because of the conversation and the understanding. They get to go to industry events. And we went to a biotechnology conference and everybody's wondering why we were there. And by the end of the conference, the stack of business cards and business contacts that are business specialists and the counselor came back with was incredible. The opportunity to create work experience, work sites and internships, do some career exploration, and some informational interviews for our consumers. It's almost unique. I think every one of our consumers has an opportunity to do a paid work experience, because the businesses are saying yes to us, because we're asking them based on a personal relationship that these business consultants are developing. They're really enthusiastic and energetic, and it's so much fun to talk with them because, like having a conversation with our director, Joe, they push me and they push us to think differently and to move in a different direction, which is, I think, the way it should be. I think the counselors and their staff should drive the program. They're the ones that work with the consumers in our businesses. They're the ones who understand what's going on way better than I would sitting in my office on the third floor in Sacramento. Carol: Yeah, I love that. I have to back up, though. I want to ask you a question about I know when you approached this grant, you've written another DIF grant before. So you've been around the block a little bit. I know when I talk to our other folks from the other states, everybody seemed to struggle with year one. You know, RSA is like spend the money, you know, and everybody says, oh, I'm trying to hire and I'm trying to do all these things. You were smart, though. What did you do differently with this DIF grant than you did before that helped you with that year one start? Mark: I don't know if it's smart or if it's experience based on experiencing the same problems. I think we do learn from past efforts when we wrote this grant. So part of the grant, and I think many of the grants that were written and that were awarded included staffing. So you wanted to hire staff and put staff on this effort and have dedicated staff to work with the consumers and to run the project. So and we did. We got eight I think, we got nine allocated positions to manage and to implement this project. So what we did was we identified what skills and talents we were looking for and what experiences we were looking for in those nine staff. We went out and talked to our district administrators and some of our managers and said, okay, which one of your existing staff have this experience and this knowledge? And we just assigned existing staff, incumbent staff, who were well trained, had demonstrated knowledge and skills in that area and were enthusiastic and energetic. We assign them to this grant, and we just use the funds and the resources that we got from the grant to hire nine new staff to backfill. Whether they were regular generals, counselor, or they're a counselor for the deaf, we just backfill behind them. We didn't have a runway. We just started right from mid-flight. And that made a huge difference because we didn't have to train people to be counselors. And we didn't have to recruit. We didn't have to wait for announcements or advertisements. So we actually started working with consumers. I think almost three months in, we already had started enrolling consumers. Carol: That is awesome because I know every single other group I talked to this long lead time for getting people on. And so year one kind of ends up being a little bit of a bust. You hate to say it quite that way, but. And it depends your state processes, it can take you almost nine months to get the people on board, and especially training them and doing all of that. So I thought that was super brilliant. Can you remind us of all the sectors you talked about a couple, what are they? Mark: Yeah. So we have six sectors within five teams because we kind of split up our advanced manufacturing and transportation. There's a lot of money that's going into infrastructure around transportation, and some of it is different than advanced manufacturing. So those two sectors, advanced manufacturing and transportation were kind of combined. But we also have biotechnology. That's another one of our sectors. It's very well paid and things that you wouldn't think of like phlebotomy lab. That's Biotechnology, Genetic engineering is Biotechnology, manufacturing medications is Biotechnology. That was one of our sectors, another one of our sectors. Health care, and that's predominant in all of our local planning areas in California. So health care is another one. And our information technology communications is the other sector. And so those are five. The sixth sector actually is our green industries. There's a lot of effort, particularly in some of our regions in California around green industries, green energy. So those are our six sectors split among our five sector specialist teams. Carol: I think that's pretty cool. And it's diverse. It's like a diverse type of work. So you're crossing all of it. I know there was another piece too, in your application where you talked about you were going to link Career Index plus that labor market tool. So for folks that may not be aware of it, it's awesome. And I love the Career Index Plus. We used it when I was in Minnesota. I think very highly of it. But you were going to pair that with Sarah to create, which is another AI tool that people use, but you're going to use it to create customized and comprehensive IP portfolios. Talk a little bit about that. Like what are you doing with that? Mark: Well, we were very fortunate we actually wrote that into the grant. And you know, to bring those experts into the conversation and to help us adapt the TCI Plus for California and for what we were looking for. And the same thing with SARA. SARA is like a digital assistant where you can program it to send reminders and messages to consumers and then get messages back from consumers and have...
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VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Using AI so VR Staff can Better Navigate All the Requirements - Washington General
02/01/2024
VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Using AI so VR Staff can Better Navigate All the Requirements - Washington General
In the studio today are Cassie Villegas, Outgoing Interim Director of Washington General, and Sven Akerman Jr, a contractor from Outlook Insight with Washington General. You can find out how Washington General empowers staff with an integrated AI tool that does the heavy lifting when researching policies, regulations, and RSA requirements, freeing staff to focus on providing quality services. {Music} Sven: Our team was presented with a challenge from DVR. They had a 767 page customer service manual, but it was really kind of difficult to find answers quickly. Cassie: You can go right in and find your answer, and I found it in 0.2 seconds rather than two hours. Coming through all of the different policies or regulations. Sven: I see this more as enablement capabilities as opposed to replacement capabilities to where, like Cassie was saying, get back to focusing on what you really want to do, not what you have to do. Cassie: Now, I don't think our staff could live without it. If we tried to pull it back now, there'd probably be mayhem. Intro Voice: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow. Carol: Well, welcome to the manager minute. Joining me in the studio today is Cassie Villegas, outgoing interim director Washington general, and Sven Ackerman, junior contractor from Outlook Insight who is working with Washington General. So thanks for being here, you guys. Sven, how is it going in Washington? Sven: Well, things are fantastic heating up and, uh, well, not heating up. It's actually getting wetter. But it's a beautiful time to be in business for Washington. Carol: Excellent. And, Cassie, how are you doing? I know you're the outgoing interim director. Hopefully you're going somewhere good. Cassie: Yeah, absolutely. Things are winding down here for me in terms of VR, but starting to wind up for the next step. So yeah, pretty excited. Carol: Good for you. Good for you. Well, thanks for joining me. We are going to have a very interesting conversation today about artificial intelligence or AI as it is commonly known. And artificial intelligence has been all over the news this summer and fall. I think about the Hollywood SAG-AFTRA strike. CEO Sam Altman with OpenAI. And in a nutshell, artificial intelligence is a simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, especially computer systems. And so when I was preparing for the podcast, I started making a list of AI in my life. I'm like, okay, what things are considered AI and it really is all around us. And I know we think it's this other big thing there, but it's here, it's everywhere right now. And I thought about my virtual assistants Siri and Alexa, the facial recognition when I go to the airport, I use CLEAR. So they're looking at my eyeballs to, you know, get my identity spam filters. You think about the algorithms in your Google search, driving my car with driver assisted technology and so many more. And I think there's a tendency for people to kind of go to that dark place. They conjure up all the dark things I could do. And you think about machines are becoming humans, and you look back at movies like The Terminator or War Games, Space Odyssey, and there are definitely valid concerns. You know, we've heard in the news as of late where individuals are cloning your voice, you know, and they're sending it to your grandma and asking for a ransom note or something like that. So as with all things that are new, you know, there's always this balance. And so when I think of AI, I always think of things like it being really cutting edge, which, sorry to say, I'm not always associating with VR, you know? And much to my surprise, I come across this article about how you guys are using this in Washington. So we have to dig in. I'm super excited. So, Cassie, can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and your background and how did you come to VR? Cassie: Yeah, so I'm currently, as you said, outgoing interim director. I've been the interim director for Washington General since July of 2023. Prior to that, I've been our deputy director. I've worked with our community rehab programs, their CRP's. I've been a tribal liaison. I've done some of the DEI work. And prior to coming to Voc Rehab, I worked for the Independent Living Council for the State of Washington. So I got my foot in the door with VR through Independent Living. But before that, I've worked in trio programs with students trying to help them obtain education, higher education, and that career exploration piece that's very similar to what we do in VR. So I've been around not very long. And of course, like you stated, I am outgoing. I'm leaving. We have a new interim director that I've handed some power over to or transitioning right now. So yeah, good things on the horizon for me, but also for VR. Carol: Very cool. It's always fun to find people's pathway into VR. We always have our foot in somehow. So that's cool that you came in through the IL world. So also, can you tell us a little bit about Washington General and how many staff the agency has and like how many consumers you all serve? Cassie: Yeah, absolutely. So in the state of Washington, we have 39 counties. Our state is broken up into three regions. We have about 41 offices across the state, and we have about 340 staff in the last year on cases, we've served just over 7000 customers. That does not include youth and students who are not on caseloads through those like group services, through pre-employment transition services. But that would probably well over double that 7000 number if we included them in that count. Carol: Well, absolutely. And I have two brothers that are out in Washington, so I know about the complexity geographically of your state it is very different. And while something may seem like it is an hour away, it really is not as you're hitting the mountains or which way you're going. And big, big differences in very rural areas of the state, a lot of geographic complexity. So, Sven, let's go to you. Tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and the company that you work for. Sven: Sure. Well, I'm the founder and chief executive for Outlook Insight. We're a social services focused company that leverages modern technology, really helping those who help others. We're proudly celebrating our 25th anniversary here on December 22nd. So just four days away from 25 years old, my background is in technology management and implementation, with a focus really on Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365 solutions. But I've been working with vocational rehabilitation agencies since 2009, when I started working at a company that built VR case management software, and since then, I've been proud to have delivered well I've been part of the implementation of over 26 VR case management systems and had the pleasure of traveling all over the country, meeting with executives and staff from VR agencies, kind of understanding the mission, what they do, how our technology helps them, and then branched out onto our own kind of rekindling the fire of the entrepreneurial spirit in 2019. And since then, we've been working with a variety of different agencies, including Washington DVR, Washington DSB, DSHs at large, and others, really helping them drive new technology capabilities to streamline their operation as we go along. Carol: Very cool. So you bring a very unique perspective. You can see technologically some of the gaps that we have to as a system for sure. So how did you get into this AI space? Sven: Well, you know, it was just a curiosity back in like December of 2022, you know, as the OpenAI ChatGPT conversation started to explode, we started looking at new ways to automate, you know, just some of the routine work we absolutely fell in love with generative AI. It's really, really spent that first quarter of the year just understanding the myriad of different open source, fee based, large language models, how to use them. And over time, we really kind of settled back into our roots a bit and decided that the Microsoft Azure platform was going to be the one that we wanted to focus on, really just kind of recognizing that's where our background and experience in technology is most prominent. And then the advanced capabilities offered a lot in terms of what we could do with it. Well, not to mention that it's generally acceptable by most state agencies to be working in Azure. So with that, it was interesting. Two things really happened agency related at about the same time. The first thing that happened was our team was presented with a challenge from DVR. They had a 767 page customer service manual, and it's a really a vast collection of guidance, policies, procedures. But it was really kind of difficult to find answers quickly in there. So they asked if there was a way to better access that content, make it more accessible and available to folks. So we accepted that challenge, and we decided to take some of our AI curiosities and apply it to this space. And we loaded a model along with their customer service manual. We also loaded it full of the RCWs and wax of Washington State law. We threw in there all the RSA policy directives and TAC publications as well as the federal statutes, and that really established a full corpus of data. Sven: And then we started to ask questions, kind of refining the prompts to optimize the responses. And that's when it all started to come together in terms of forming great answers for Washington DVR related to their customer service manual. But the second thing that happened was really interesting. You know, working in technology, I help a variety of folks, especially as people are onboarding, sharing knowledge where I can. And one of the newer staff person who was hired to take over the technical roles of someone else who's going to be retiring, came up to me and they had a technology policy question, and I was like, well, don't trust me on this answer. Let's go find the authoritative source. Let's go out to the Washington OCIO policy website and see if we can find the answer there. And I got to tell you, you know, after 20 minutes of searching, we were coming up empty handed. And eventually we wound up finding the answer that we were looking for in one of the sub sites there. And I thought, man, this is just too hard. I mean, how can a new worker be expected to remain compliant when the compliance guidance comes from so many places? So that was frustrating enough for us to take all of the OCIO policies in Washington state, load them into a model on our own, and see can we get to those answers much more quickly? And we were just thrilled and delighted with the approach. It really helped that new employee get to answers very quickly, and we have since been kind of socializing that experience with others. So there's how we got in there. Carol: Tell us a little more about this technology. How does it really like, how does this all work? Sven: Well there’s not a ton of mystery to it, although we're not going to get into any of the complexity about how AI and machine learning works. But really the intent of this solution is really to. Help workers find information to make the most productive with their compliance driven environments. So ultimately, what we're intending to do is to drive them to authoritative content based off of just human language prompts and questions. Kind of like you would ask a coworker a question or have a discussion with them. And so the way that it works is, you know, at the agency level, the content that is of interest for exposure through this model is compiled together, and we pull that data into a search index. So we index all of that content in a way that we can then do what's called a semantic search across it, basically finding answers based off of intent of the question, not just keywords. And that delivers back a very rich response in terms of the authoritative content that comes back. And then we take those results, and then that's where we start to leverage the large language model, the Azure Open AI large language model, and we summarize the content of that search. Sven: Okay. So we searched the content that the agency knows we have a result set. We summarize that in just a human readable form. We present that back to the user. And then we also include in their citations back to the original document that was uploaded and ingested. By doing it that way, we're able to quickly show the user. Here is a summary of what has been discovered with some context and understanding around it. Let them drill into the authoritative content to really see you know, what are the specific words that are of legal authority. But then we take it a little bit farther in that since it's not just a search retrieval system, using that large language model, we expose the ability to do things like drafting emails based off of the context of the conversation you're having, or explaining things in new ways, like through telling stories or simplifying concepts down to perhaps a more easily understandable level for folks you're trying to communicate with. Carol: I thought the storytelling was kind of hysterical because for disclosure to our listeners, Sven shared the link with me to access. So I'm in there asking it questions, and then it says, do you want this presented in another form? So obviously, you know, I put in like, hey, how many days do I have to determine eligibility? And so of course, then this whole thing comes back, it links to all of the policies. It gives you any RSA guidance on it. It's got the regulatory citation. And then I'm like, tell me the story. You can click the button. You know, tell me a story about this. And so then it's like, oh, then there's the story about Bill or whatever. And it does this whole thing about to put that in the context, I thought that was pretty cool. I am like, I've never seen anything like that. Now. The story got a little wild there for a bit as it goes through it, but it was pretty fun. I thought that was super interesting way to think about it. So, Cassie, I know Terry Redman started this initiative with Sven and his company. How were you involved in all of this? Cassie: Yeah, so as the deputy under Terry, I was hearing a lot of really cool things from Terry, from Sven hints that something big was coming. We're working on this AI tool. It was really excited when Terry decided to step away, and I got to bump up into interim to get the full picture and to, like, really know what was going on behind the scenes. Just personally, I'm excited by innovation and technology. I am a millennial. I've, you know, had a computer in front of me my entire life, basically. So I'm like, let's use new tools. So I inherited the project, was really excited when I got to finally see the demo from Sven. And I'm like, let's go, let's get this out there to our staff as fast as we can. And that's what we did. We kept it moving. We added to the list of to-do's, but this was the top of that to do list. And here we are. We've got this really great tool. Carol: So when did this all roll out? Cassie: So we soft launched it in early October just to get hands on it from some of our like program managers. And then we had the hard launch the full as available to everyone. At the end of October of 2023, we had an all staff in-service event for two days. We brought Sven and his team in to introduce it to all of our staff, to train them on how to use it, to kind of give them that background on the purpose and how to ask appropriate and meaningful questions, how to check the sources and just start easing people into using it. So we've had it up for about two months or so now. So yeah, we had a really quick timeline and our staff are using it daily now. Carol: So how is that rollout going? What's the reaction from the staff? Cassie: I think now it's pretty positive. There's still people that are discovering it. You have new folks or people who maybe just they didn't think it pertained to them. We had a program manager in our headquarters office. I think it was just what last week Sven at our holiday party, they pulled you aside and you left the party to go show them how to use the tool, because they just didn't have a need for it until someone said something and they were excited to see how it worked. But at first I think there was a lot of nerves around it. I, like you, kicked us off at this conversation as scary to some, so there was a little bit of convincing, hey, this is a really beneficial tool for your day to day. It did take a little bit of show and tell, demonstrating the tool, showing the benefits, reinforcing the benefits to everybody. Why it’s a good thing? But now I don't think our staff could live without it. If we tried to pull it back now, there'd probably be mayhem. Carol: Well I can imagine I think about all the new counselors coming in, new techs, you know, all the different staff coming in and you get your orientation and, you know, you're reading policies and procedures and it's just all so much. There's so many dates and all these, you must do this and this and this. I think this would be fabulous because everybody gets assigned a mentor. You have a way that you're getting trained, but you don't want to 40 times a day, go back and ask them like, oh gosh, I forgot. Like what was the requirement around this? If you could just type your question in and you get the answer. I find for me at least, that helps me remember for the next time, you know, because I've done that research, I've gone in and seen it then and I'm able to like, retain that even better. So I'm sure. Are you hearing that like from new staff especially? I would think this would be like an amazing tool for them. Cassie: Yeah, absolutely. I think there's many benefits to the tool. So like you said, new staff coming in, maybe not embarrassed. They don't want to ask the same question four times. Sometimes you need the context to retain it. Maybe you hear the old tropes from staff who've been around. You know, we've got the MythBusters kind of thing that needs to happen. Sometimes you can go right in and jump in, find your answer, and make sure to share it with your peers. Actually, that's a myth. This is what policy says. And I found it in point two seconds rather than two hours coming through all of the different policies or regulations that we have to work within. So there's benefits there. There's also benefits when it comes to talking to our customers. If we don't have a clear understanding of our own practices or policies, it's a challenge to explain the why to each other, but also to our customers. So there's a benefit that it's right there in front of your fingertips. Really easy to access when you're in meetings with customers to explain the why. And then like you've talked about already, the storytelling piece. So storytelling helps us learn. It's helping us as VR professionals learn, but it also helps our customers have a clearer understanding of services and the whys. And I think that sometimes the work that we do is really hard. So we get a little bit of cognitive fatigue, or if we're constantly having to think differently to explain things to our customers, it can take away some of the brainpower we need for the more challenging parts of our day to day. So you just go into this AI tool and say, tell me a story about this particular policy, and I can explain it to the person sitting in front of me in a way that they're going to understand, and I'm keeping that cognitive load off of me and just using the tools so I...
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VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: How to Make VR Thrive! Building a Culture That Withstands the Test of Time at Vermont General
01/03/2024
VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: How to Make VR Thrive! Building a Culture That Withstands the Test of Time at Vermont General
Diane Dalmasse, Director of HireAbility Vermont, is in the studio today. Diane is the longest-serving director nationally in the VR program and has a lot to say about culture in the workplace and the changes Vermont made to retain and attract employees from across the nation. Learn about how hiring an organizational consultant back in the 90s continues to prove its worth today. {Music} Diane: I think that everyone should have their voices heard and have some ownership in how we move forward as an organization. I think it has enabled us to set a very high bar for staff. All in all, our career ladders, our leadership development are supporting professional growth and development in any way we can has really contributed to staff morale and staff retention. They are owning where we're going and actually driving how we get there. Intro Voice: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow. Carol: Well welcome to the manager minute. Joining me in the studio today is Diane Dalmasse director of Higher Ability Vermont. Now Diane Vermont's been in the news this fall that crazy flooding you had and other things. How are things going for you? Diane: Things are actually fine in most places in Vermont, the flooding was very localized to central Vermont, with Montpelier really suffering, as I'm sure everyone watched on the news. It was devastating and still is in Montpelier. They're really working hard to come back. Carol: I remember seeing the images. It was so incredible. I was down on my treadmill right away. I emailed you guys. I'm like, are you all okay? Are your staff okay? And your customers? I was just, it looked insane, I couldn't even believe it. Diane: Yeah. There was a lot of housing lost, particularly lower income housing in central Vermont, which really just has made an already crisis situation much worse. Carol: Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Well, I'm hoping with the winter coming and I saw you have awesome weather that'll be happening out on the coast, you know, that that isn't going to impact people so much, especially with this housing situation. Well, I'm excited about the discussion we're going to have about culture. I know in my TA work, I get asked all the time. And our listeners, you know, are those folks there going, hey, who's got a good culture? And, you know, that's a really tricky question. And a lot of agencies are struggling with this right now, really have been for some time. And on the side, one of my things I've been passionate about looking at is the turnover in directors, you know, nationwide. And I'm up to 134 changes in the last decade out of the 78 SVRAs. And you just go, holy smokes. And you can see this trajectory, you know, WIOA hit and the pandemic hit, and you just see the chart going up, up, up and the great resignation. And so I think people are feeling kind of tired and worn out. And we have a lot of new directors coming in who are coming in from outside of VR. And so people reach out and they go, hey, who's got something good going on? And the funny thing is, everybody and maybe not so funny, but everybody says, gosh, you got to talk to Diane in Vermont. And so I was super excited. I get to see your staff, James and Amanda at CSAVR. And I'm like, Amanda. She was sitting next to me. I said, I really want to talk about your culture. You have to talk to Diane. Like, Amanda was so excited. She goes, you absolutely have to talk to Diane. So I am super excited to unpack this today. I do like the Peter Drucker quote. He said, culture eats strategy for breakfast. And I know sometimes people like to say culture eats strategy for lunch, whichever meal it is. He really was on the pulse with something. So let's dig into this. So, I know Vermont is a smaller state. Can you give our listeners a little picture of your agency, like how many staff and customers do you have? And if you have any particular like geographical challenges? Diane: We are a small but very mighty state, Carol, and we have applied for multiple federal grants over the years. And I think that reviewers or whoever views us as a laboratory for trying different strategies and different ways of working. And so, yes, we're small. We have a staff of about 150 employees, and we have a contractor, our CRP, our primary CRP that does most of our employment work. They are staff are co-located in our offices. So we have about 200 people that are working in our 12 offices spread across the state, and we serve around 6000 people a year. We are small, but I think we're on the cutting edge of many things. Carol: I know I love that because, you know, you're on the East Coast, you're nestled in there, you're not a huge state, but there's always so many cool things coming out from your program. And I think your staff are just so smart, and they're always looking out and finding out what cool things are going on. And just they're such great thinkers. I think you all are. And not only just thinking it, you take it and apply it and make it your own and figure things out. And you really are on the cutting edge of doing things in a different way. And I really appreciate that about you. I'm sure our listeners are also interested, Diane, I always like to talk to people a little bit about like, how did you get into VR and how long have you been at the agency? Diane: Well, I have been at the agency forever, essentially. I became director in 1991, so I've been here over 30 years and I have yet to be bored. Every day is a new challenge. We are not tired and worn out here in Vermont. We are excited about the work that we do every day and the impact it has. We make a difference in people's lives all the time, which is just amazing. I worked previous to my VR work in Human Services doing child welfare work and psychiatric social work. But I came to VR as a supervisor and never left and really felt that I'd found a home here. Work is absolutely transformational for people and I love my job well. Carol: I think it's amazing. You are the longest standing director now in the country out of the 78 programs, I'm like, good for you and good on your agency. I think that that will be it's super helpful to you as we're going to have this culture talk. So I know when you walked into the situation that you did, you know, 32 years ago, you walked into some different challenges. And I appreciate we all have done that. I walked into challenges. I think any time you take over from somebody else, can you talk a little bit about those beginning years and kind of how you approached that, what you were facing and what you did? Diane: Yes, I had been working in Central Office as a field operations director for 3 or 4 years, I think, before I was promoted to director. So I had an opportunity to see firsthand how things were being done and I wasn't happy. And my predecessor, really, he was not dedicated to the mission and goals of the agency, in my opinion. So when I came into the job, I really I pulled together critical people in the disability community and said to them, we are going to turn this agency around. We are going to take everything and try to determine what is value added for the customer and what we do for the convenience of the agency, or because we perceive that federal regulations require us to do those things. And we did. We changed many, many things and we innovated in many different ways. We had a Consumer Choice Grant for those that remember back to the mid 90s, which was a five year grant that provided us with many resources to focus on change. And we did just that. Carol: Well, I think, you know, you were super smart about this with that Choice Grant, and you talked to me about this with hiring that organizational consultant. And I've been really thinking about that since you and I chatted the other day, which would have been amazing. I wish I would have thought of that. You know, coming into Minnesota, can you talk more about how that has helped you having that organizational consultant and kind of doing that all these years? Diane: I certainly can. I think that is one of the major educational tools for me as a director. And lessons learned in terms of moving your agency forward is organizational development specialists. People who do this for a living can be invaluable in terms of helping you from an outside, more objective place. Look at your agency in terms of what's working well and what isn't organizationally. And so I used a big chunk of the resources from that initial consumer choice grant to hire organizational development people. Then we had a team that went into each of our 12 offices and looked at how we did business and what was working and what wasn't. And out of that came a strategic plan, and our kind of vision for the future, which really moved us along. And to this day, I have organizational development people on contract, because I have found that early intervention and getting that sort of outside specialist view can be the key to unblocking and moving forward in so many ways. Carol: Yeah, I think that was really brilliant. How did you go about finding the people you found? You know, back in the day? I don't think there was Google. It's like, how can folks find them? Diane: Well, we put out a request for proposals and I think early on it was we really believe in involving staff in almost everything we do. And so we had quite a large committee with staff present, and we interviewed oh, 5 or 6 different vendors who provide these services in order to make a selection of someone that we thought shared our values and our vision for the organization. And we stayed with that consultant and her team for years. Eventually we moved on. And as I said, we are always working with someone either on leadership development, professional coaching, conflict management, all those things that any agency runs into. Carol: I love that you included all these different staff in that, and that is the one thing I hear about you with, you know, staff throughout the organization really feeling a part of things, you know, and that is a great tip for your colleagues across the country as well. So it isn't just you and Amanda and James deciding, here's the person we're picking. Diane: Right, I have two strategic themes really values that I think drive how we do business. One is valuing and empowering employees. I think that when you value and empower employees, employees treat their customers to the degree they're treated. So if employees are treated really well, they're going to provide a high level of service to your customer. And the opposite is also true. And then I think that everyone should have their voices heard and have some ownership in how we move forward as an organization. And so I like to think that I set the direction. But then I say to the people who do the work on the front lines, how best can we move in that direction? How best can we attain that vision that I think we all share? And I think it has enabled us to set a very high bar for staff, because they are owning where we're going and actually driving how we get there. Carol: That is really good. And I know it's simple advice, you know, but we don't always think to go, let's ask the people who are doing the work how we could do this better or more effectively or what do you see, you know, or sometimes we'll ask, but we don't do anything with it. You know, we don't act on what they're telling us. I love that that is great advice. Now, I know WIOA really threw a wrench into things for everyone. It threw a wrench for me. I was a really brand new director. I mean, I literally came in in 2013 and then July 22nd, 2014, this whole deal went down and everybody kept telling me, oh, don't worry about it. You'll have a couple of years. They'll write implementing regs. And, you know, the difference was they said the day that Barack Obama signed that it went into effect. And that was the difference. And so we're all running around trying to do something and we didn't know what we're doing. How did you approach that time? Because I know my staff just thought this was insane. And somehow I'd made all this up like this. All could not possibly be true. How'd you do it? Diane: Well, I think that we were in disbelief as well and sort of ignored it or ran from it. I think particularly the Pre-ETS piece. We couldn't believe they really meant it. We like James, my deputy, and I was like, it's not going to happen. They're going to change their minds. They're going to undo this. Right? But we really came to our senses in a few months. I mean, it wasn't as if we said, oh, we won't do anything until they write the regs we like realized that this was statute. This was not something that was easily changed, that Congress had indicated this was how they wanted us to do business and they fund us. And so we decided that we needed to figure it out and move forward, and that waiting was not going to help us. And so with both Pre-ETS and then the other very significant change in WIOA that we looked at was the real change from our old federal standards and indicators, which were gone, replaced by the common performance measures. And we were number one in the nation for years in terms of per capita placements and rehabilitations and employment outcomes. And we knew how to do this. And when we looked at the common performance measures, they weren't about quantity. They weren't about how many people can we get a job for any job. They were about the quality of that employment. They were about retention, earnings, credential attainment, employer satisfaction, measurable skills gains. And so we said, whoa, this is like the biggest change in our service delivery that I've ever seen. And I've lived through a few reauthorizations. So in both cases, we look to staff in varying ways to help us figure this out. And with the shift from quantity to quality, early on we went on a two day management retreat and we said, let's do a SWOT analysis of this. Let's take a look at what are the opportunities here. What are the threats here, how do we want to proceed. And I think with Pre-ETS, we set sort of a values based approach in that what we felt Congress was telling us was serve those students earlier. Early intervention leads to better outcomes. And for our shift from quantity to quality, it was like, of course this is what we should be doing. You know, we don't want to help people get into five entry level jobs. We want to help that person obtain a credential, move into a meaningful job that they will stay in and grow in. And so I think by having a values based approach and both those major, major changes in how VR did business, we were able to. And gave staff and staff, owned it with us and shared our vision for the future. Carol: That is super smart. I know I keep saying that, but the way you approached it, I think was super helpful. I know I took more of an approach like this. These are our compliance pieces. You know, we have to do this and probably missed the boat really. On how you engage folks early on. I was more like we needed to do it. And that didn't always go over as well and did talk a lot about having family, sustaining wages. That was always extremely important to me. I didn't want people to just get a job and food, filth and flowers. Not that that work isn't important. And if someone did want to do that, that's fine. And how can we find the best version of that job possible? But I didn't want that to be the fallback. I didn't want people to think that's the only thing they could do. And I wanted people to not be in poverty and all of that. But your approach has really served you well because you've been able to really recruit and retain your staff. And so I think kind of that having that even keel and leadership and people within your agency has been super helpful. I know you have done some things specifically to really help you with recruiting and retaining staff. What are some of those initiatives you've taken on for years to help really build your culture? And now one that we know you are in support of your staff all the time? Diane: Yeah. I again fall back on valued and empowered employees. I think people want to come work for us because other people tell them what a great place to work we are and how supportive we are of employees. And so that word of mouth travels well and beyond Vermont in many ways. We've had people come from all over the country to work for us. Yes, I think post-pandemic, we had no idea how successful we could be in terms of remote work and in really serving clients in ways that they want to be served, rather than making them drive to the office, come into our offices and worry about gas money or child care or whatever other issues they have. And I think we have helped people have a much better work life balance with a hybrid environment, which we don't intend to end. We think that we attract top talent, and we keep people by offering them that hybrid environment and that work life balance. So I think that's been very important. We've also tried to have our compensation keep up. And so we've worked at getting people upgraded and increasing their pay. But I think the environment and the culture are as or more important than the compensation in many ways. Carol: Yeah. The work life balance really came to light during the pandemic. And I know in some cases, states, the governors have gone back to some of our VR programs been impacted because the governor's gone. All right. We know you did remote work, but now we don't want you to do that anymore. You have to come back in 100%, and they're just losing staff in droves. It has been terrible, absolutely terrible. And so keeping that flexibility is super important to people more than money a lot of times. So that has been great. I know you've also been very supportive of your staff with just trying to promote that professional development within within your agency, what are the things you do to help support each of them professionally? You know, to grow? Diane: We've done a number of things. We've built a career ladder for counselors, which we have had to do is when we cannot find a master's level candidate that is the best person for the job, we will hire someone with a bachelor's degree, with the understanding that they will obtain a master's at our expense within four years. And so we've broadened the recruitment pool, and then we have a rehab associate. We have a counselor one, a counselor two, a senior counselor one, a senior counselor two. We've really created a career ladder of sorts. And recently we created an associate senior counselor two and a senior counselor two. In our world, it's a first line supervisor. And so because of to the degree that we've experienced turnover, like every other agency across the country post pandemic, I think we've still been able to attract really quality people because of who we are. And we realized that we need to be even more focused on succession planning and leadership development. And so we created this associate senior counselor so that people who hadn't obtained that master's, people who weren't quite qualified to step into a full supervisory position, could get a vote of confidence and on a career track to make that move when they finish the master's degree and had the experiential requirement to make that leap. So I think all in all, our career ladders our leadership development are supporting professional growth and development in any way we can has really contributed to staff morale and staff retention. Carol: That has been an issue for others. You know, people have been striving to try to do some sort of...
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VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: What important question is VR missing when working with our Older Blind and Visually Impaired IL customers?
12/01/2023
VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: What important question is VR missing when working with our Older Blind and Visually Impaired IL customers?
In the studio today is Kendra Farrow, Project Director with the Older Individuals Who Are Blind – Technical Assistance Center at the National Research & Training Center on Blindness & Low Vision Mississippi State University. Kendra and Carol discuss the question, “Why not ask the Older Individuals who are Blind right up front if they want to work?" Are we missing the boat with these talented individuals who are commonly not given the option for VR services that can benefit them? Whether it’s training, job development and placement, or job retention, VR services in conjunction with IL services, can lead to successful employment outcomes for Older Individuals who are Blind and contribute to their sense of purpose and meaning. {Music} Kendra: When somebody who is 55 or older loses vision and they call about services and they say, well, how old are you? And if they're over 55, they're just pushing them into the older individuals who are blind program. They aren't necessarily then offered the services that they could benefit from. We're cutting ourselves short, and it's a very easy closure once the person has regained their confidence with the older blind program and learning some skills, once they start seeing I can do these things, maybe I want to go back to work now that I have some confidence again. Intro Voice: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow. Carol: Well, welcome to the Manager Minute. Joining me in the studio today is Kendra Farrell, Project Director with the Older Individuals who are Blind. Technical Assistance Center that is housed at the National Research and Training Center on Blindness and Low Vision at Mississippi State University. Holy moly. That's a mouthful. So, Kendra, how are things going in Mississippi? Kendra: Oh they're good. Carol: Awesome. Thanks for joining me today. So for our listeners, I want to give a little background. The Technical Assistance Centers that are funded by RSA, we hold a regular TAC collaborative meeting so we can leverage resources and keep each other informed so we can serve all of you better. And in a recent collaborative meeting, I asked the group for any possible ideas where we could collaborate on a podcast. And sure enough, Kendra brought up an interesting conversation that she had with a group of experts that was talking about eligibility for the OIB program, and that led to a deeper discussion about a place where VR might be missing the boat on serving a very important group of people. So, of course, my background as a former director of a blind agency, it really resonated with me, and I wanted to let our listeners in on the conversation. So let's dig in. So, Kendra, can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and how you came to be the director of the OIB TAC? Kendra: Yeah, I started out my career working in direct services, providing vision rehab therapy services to individuals of all ages at a nonprofit agency. And after doing that for 14 years, I saw a job posting with the National Research and Training Center on Blindness and Low Vision. We call it the NRTC for short, and they gave me a job. I was hired on a research grant related to employment for people who are blind or have low vision. And once we got started with that a little bit, there was the opportunity to apply for the grant to have the Technical Assistance Center for Older Blind services. And my colleague and I said that we kind of felt like maybe we were doing a disservice to the field if we didn't apply because we have a long history at the NRTC of doing like some external program evaluations for older blind programs. I think we had conducted program evaluations for, I think it's over 25 of the states over the years. Since I've been here, we've only worked with maybe 5 or 6, so not as many. But, you know, we have that background and we've had publications and done different things related to the older blind services back when it was a discretionary grant in the 90s. Before it was a formula grant, only a couple of states had it. So we were kind of like the place where the information was stored, like collected. What is currently collected on the annual 7OB report that is provided to RSA by all of the programs we collected that data. I don't know if it went to RSA too, but we collected that data and then published on it to establish the importance of the services that were being provided. So we do have a long history, long before I came here in 2015, when the opportunity to apply to be the Technical Assistance Center, my colleague and I decided that we should try to get the grant. So it's completely changed my job with the NRTC, I was working my colleague was the project director for a number of years until she retired, and then we had some other directors in between. And so, because I have the historical knowledge, and when the most recent director left, I decided that it was time to just step up and direct the project, because it's the hard thing to have a national perspective on the older blind services. It's not something that's easy to find. You know, we tried to post and hire somebody, and there's just not a lot of people that can come and hit the ground running with having that national perspective. Carol: Yeah, you nailed that for sure, because I know when I was at Minnesota Blind, we always relied on the NRTC and the resources. You guys had such amazing curriculum. We would have staff go through and take your courses. You were the go to people. So you're definitely the right people. And you're right, there isn't a lot of folks that have that nationwide perspective that you all had. So why don't you tell us a little bit about the mission of the OIB TAC? What is your focus? Kendra: According to RSA and the grant and the cooperative agreement that we work under, we provide technical assistance and training, and we provide that on four different topic areas, which include community outreach, promising practices in service delivery, financial and management practices, and data collection and analysis, including program performance kinds of things. Carol: I love it because I had the opportunity you brought me in. We were able to collaborate on a state and that was super fun to watch you and your team, and to see how we could do a little collaboration between the and you. And I really appreciated that. I know you also have had some personal experience with VR. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Kendra: Yeah, I have always been legally blind. I was a high partial when I was young and grew up just doing the best I could with what I had, and had a few services as a child in three school, large print books. You know, I wasn't really considered in my mind to be blind. But then when I got to college, you know, the reading is harder and everything, and I started working with VR. They provided some assistive technology that I needed to be successful in college, and my vision did start to go downhill. And so I needed more services. And I have kind of been in and out just through my various jobs and different challenges with technology through the years, trying to keep myself up to date and able to do the things that I do to be employed. Carol: Thanks for sharing that, because I think it's always interesting when you come from working in the system, you can see some things maybe differently. You have a different viewpoint about VR and some of the things that what was working and what doesn't work. Kendra: One of the unique things is that I have received VR services in three different states, and so just the differences between the states is very interesting to observe. And, you know, the separate versus a combined agency, you know, how that feels different and that kind of thing is very interesting to think about. Carol: That I did not know that about you. So that is very interesting because people always say there are 78 VR programs and there are 78 ways of doing everything. Kendra: I've only seen three. Carol: Let's talk about this conversation you had with a group of experts around disabilities that is going to lead to our conversation today. What is the opportunity that VR is missing? Kendra: Well, individuals who lose vision later in life. Often people think, what would I do in those circumstances? And so we go on some of our preconceived ideas about blindness or vision impairment. That is going to be hard to work. And the truth is that many of those people, when they're in the situation of losing their vision, they're in their 40s, 50s, 60s, a lot of times they are planning to work until they're maybe like 69 or 70, because you get higher rates on your Social Security retirement account, your payments, if you work until you're older and they usually are planning to do that. And so to take an early retirement is putting them in a financial disadvantage that they weren't planning on. And also people want to be busy. They want to contribute. It makes you feel good to work and to contribute. And so when somebody who is 55 or older loses vision and they call about services and they say, well, how old are you? And if they're over 55, they're just pushing them into the older individuals who are blind program, which eligibility begins at age 55. So they aren't necessarily then offered VR services that they could benefit from. And these are people with decades of experience that have job skills. And we have such a need right now for people to fill positions that are open. You know, we've had this mass wave of retirement and we don't want to see more people retire if possible. You know, I think employers really want people to stay in their jobs, especially those that are experienced and have lots to give yet to their fields. And even if they can't stay within the job that they were in, it's not outside the scope of imagination to think that they could still go back to school and learn a different profession and apply some of their job skills in a different field. Carol: I know you have hit the nail on the head with this. It really made me think back to my time at SSB in Minnesota, because I thought about our folks coming into the older blind program and how we, you know, you just funnel them in. Oh, you're not going to still want to work. And anywhere you go today, you go to the grocery store, any place you are, you're shopping, you're out and about. You see a lot of older individuals that are back at work. People may have retired and they're like, you know, I want to do a little something or they're working still full time because you are right. I just got my Social Security statement the other day, and there is a significant difference between collecting at 62 and collecting at 70, like substantially different. And so you want to prolong that as long as you can. So your end days you aren't just living in complete poverty. I think that is super smart. I know when you and I were chatting about this, we were thinking, some of this comes down to just that. Overall, in our society, some of the ageism, I know I have felt that turning 60 this last year and. People going, oh, you're 60 now. When are you going to retire Retire? Because I retired from the state of Minnesota when I was 57, because I'd started working during high school, and I knew I was going to go into this TA world and was really excited about that. I had never intended on retiring- retiring. I was going into this other work, but now people are like, you turn 60 and it's like, when are you going to retire? And I'm thinking, well, not yet. I don't want to yet. And even going to my doctor's office, I was there to get a shot. And they're like, well, you know, you're of a certain age now. You need the RSV shot, too. And I feel like, wow, stuff has changed. And I know you felt like you've had that. I believe you turned 50 recently. Kendra: I did, and even before that, like, I don't know, maybe nine months or a year ago, somebody said to me, just out of the blue, when are you going to retire? And I'm like, hello, I'm not even 50 yet. What are you talking about? Carol: I know it's kind of hilarious. You go, what's up? And why are we putting that, you know, on our customers that are coming in the door because they're 55 years old. It's like all of a sudden you have no value to work. Kendra: Well, let me just say this, that after we had our initial conversation about making this a podcast topic, I said to myself, is there a way I can kind of test this theory about people wanting to work? So we get technical assistance calls, you know, sometimes from consumers. And so I've had three individuals call me since we had that conversation, and I determined that I would not ask them their age, that I would simply ask them as the first question out of my mouth was, would you like to work? And out of all three of those technical assistance calls, all three said yes. And after the conversation, none of them actually told me their age. But one did tell me that he was 70 and another lady, that she was like, well, can I work? I said, sure you can. Do you want to work? She said, yes. I said, okay, here's the number, call them and make sure you tell them when you're asking about services that you want to work. I said, that's the key. You need to tell them that right up front. That's my little story. Carol: Yeah. You've got your research going. I think that's cool. I think you and I chatted about just those misconceptions, you know, what are some of those misconceptions about blindness being the most difficult disability to get individuals into employment? Because I sure didn't think that coming to SSB, I had worked in some other agencies with different sort of disability groups, and I'm going, gosh, I felt like this group would be like the easiest group to get into employment, but I know people have a lot of misconceptions. What are some of those? Kendra: Well, they think that there's higher liability to the employer if you're thinking about something more industrial moving around, that there's safety concerns. And I think there's a huge thing about safety concerns that the rest of the team is going to feel like that employee is a burden, like they have to help them, like you're going to have to help the person use their computer or use the photocopier. And yeah, you might have to help with little things, but the Blind employee can totally contribute in just the same way as any other employee, and is going to have strengths and weaknesses like any other employee. You know, not all sighted employees are good with their computer, and co-workers help each other with their computers all the time. Just getting ready to do the podcast. Today, my coworker had to come in here and help me set up the microphone, and that's okay. I mean, that's a normal thing that coworkers do for each other. You know, it's just the way the workplace goes. So it's not that we don't help each other, but everybody helps each other. Carol: That is such a great way to put it, because I'm thinking this boomer generation, it's hysterical. You know, you're working with some of the younger folks and they're doing cool new things and you're like, oh, how do I do? How do I do that on the on the computer? We do all help each other all the time. But why is it that if a person is blind or visually impaired somehow that that help seems like, oh, like that's extra. You know, it's an extra thing when it isn't if it's anybody else. Kendra: Right. I don't understand why that is. And maybe they, I don't know, I'm just guessing, but they just think that the productivity might be less too. And it's true that we do things differently. But I can tell you that there are certain things I can do faster than my sighted colleagues because I use keystrokes. And, you know, I could show them how to use the keystrokes to their Windows, keystrokes, anybody can use them. And so a Blind employee can actually be helping their coworkers become more efficient because they do things in a different way. And it also makes the world better because the things that are sometimes inaccessible to me, the sighted employees are telling me, we hate that too. It doesn't work well, and I think if they would update that system, if they would make it so that it would be accessible for me, it would probably be nicer for the sighted employees too. So having those diverse members of an employment team is really good, because what's good for the blind employee, or helps them to be more effective in their role, is going to help the entire team. I was just having a conversation yesterday with a couple of my coworkers. We have some virtual employees and we have in-person employees, and the hybrid team is, you know, we were talking about when we have a meeting that it would be good if we went around and had like a little introduction slash icebreaker, even though we all know each other, but to know who's in the room to make sure how the microphone are picking up somebody's voice, if they're virtual to the meeting, you know, because then they'll know, oh, the person who sounds really far away, that's Jennifer over there in the corner, you know, because she's introduced herself. You heard and she says, oh, yeah, for Thanksgiving, I had my daughter and my husband with me, you know, or whatever, you know, just a little sentence icebreaker conversation to hear the voice and to remind yourself, because we don't meet every week and or even every day. And we have a big team. There's like, I don't know, like 16 of us and some are always virtual and some are here in person and some are on different teams so they don't interact, except that one meeting every month. So anyway. But that would be good for everybody. It's not just, it's not just the blind employees, but it's something that would be really helpful for those of us who depend on listening to identify who people are as they're talking during the meeting. Carol: That makes perfect sense. I love that you talked about keystrokes. Dave Andrews back at SSB, he was teaching me keystrokes. I still use him today because it's much quicker when I'm doing different things. Yeah, that resonated with me. So what do you think OIB staff should say to those customers periodically? Kendra: In the conversation we had with the experts back in the original conversation that got me thinking on this topic altogether, they were suggesting that it should be offered right at the beginning, as we're making somebody eligible to ask them if they're interested in employment and then again later once they start building up their confidence and their skills. Because sometimes when people suddenly or even not so suddenly lose vision, it's a real hit to their confidence level. And they're like, I can't even pick out a pair of pants and a top that match each other. How am I going to go to work? I can't even warm up soup on my stove and not burn myself, or feel like I'm going to make a mess all over the place when I pour it into the bowl. How can I go to work if I can't even do basic things to take care of myself? It's so important that they can build up that confidence first, because it's hard to think I can use a computer if you can't even make yourself a bowl of soup. So doing those independent living goals and being able to build up that confidence once they start seeing I can do these things for myself. I don't have to ask my husband to always come in here and pour the soup into the bowl. I can do that myself. I can pick out my own clothes. I have a labeling system that helps me know that I match, and I can put on my makeup, and I can look appropriate to go out of the...
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VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Career Advancement DIF - How MRC is Turning VR on its Head!
11/06/2023
VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Career Advancement DIF - How MRC is Turning VR on its Head!
In the studio today are Joan Phillips, Assistant Commissioner at the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission, and Michelle Banks, DIF Strategic Director for MRC. Find out how MRC is turning VR on its head. What would they do differently in the first year, and what results would they see after year 2? Learn about the success of the job certification program, and how they are meeting the "NextGen-ers" where they are at. Hear how Joan and Michelle encourage others to take on a DIF Grant to help bring more innovation and creative ideas to VR. Learn more about the {Music} Joan: If you are committed to this field, please apply for a DIF grant. Bring your ideas forward so we can infuse the future of VR with new energy and achieve more outcomes for individuals with disabilities who come to us, really depending on us, to help them make life changing decisions. Michelle: We're moving more and more young adults into trainings. We've developed training partnerships in technology, in health care. We're trying to forge our way into biotech. Joan: I'm always challenging staff. What else? How else? Intro Voice: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow. Carol: Well, welcome to the Manager Minute. Joining me in the studio today are Joan Phillips, assistant commissioner at the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission, and Michelle Banks, DIF strategic director for MRC. So, Joan, how are things going at MRC? Joan: Things are going really well. We are extremely busy working hard to ensure that the individuals who come to us seeking employment have every opportunity to get the training and to be upskilled and to gain employment. We are very, very busy but very happy. Carol: Well, and of course, under Tony, she keeps you very busy because Tony's got a lot of great ideas. I love that. Joan: She's got a lot of energy, more than all of us, that's for sure. Carol: How about you, Michelle? How are things going for you? Michelle: Good, busy is the word. Our project is well underway. Got a lot of participants. We've got a lot of interested folks and a lot of optimism for what we're about to achieve here. So it's going well. Carol: I'm super excited to dig into this because I know our listeners have been really excited. And so this is the third podcast in a series focused on the Disability Innovation Fund career advancement projects. And I want to just do a little quick recap for our listeners about this particular round of the Disability Innovation Fund grants. So grant activities are geared to support innovative activities aimed at improving the outcomes of individuals with disabilities. And the Career Advancement Initiative model demonstrations funded back in 2021 were intended to identify and demonstrate practices that are supported by evidence to assist VR eligible individuals with disabilities, including previously served VR participants in employment who reenter the program to do the following. And it was to advance in high demand, high quality careers like science, technology, engineering, and math or those STEM careers, to enter career pathways in industry driven sectors through pre apprenticeships, registered apprenticeships and industry recognized apprenticeship programs to improve and maximize the competitive integrated outcomes, economic self-sufficiency, independence and inclusion in society and reduce reliance on public benefits like SSI, SSDI and or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and any state or local benefits. Also, when we think back, Congress made career pathways a necessary, if not foundational, part of WIOA's workforce reforms and states, for example, are required to include career pathways and workforce development systems. They're required to have them in their local plans that they have. So it's been really fun because each of the other agencies that we featured to date has taken a really uniquely Different approach, and I'm excited to unpack what's happening with you all. So, Joan, I'm going to start with you. Tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and how you got into VR. Joan: I actually have a master's degree in rehabilitation, but spent a significant amount of my career working in the private sector. I feel that those experiences really informed my positions that I've held at MRC. I came in as a director of one of our local offices, and four years later I was promoted to Assistant Commissioner. So that's a little glimpse into my journey. I have significant experience in Workforce Development, disability determination to determine eligibility for disability benefits, working with young adults with disabilities, individuals with severe physical disabilities. And I'm very fortunate to be in this career. Carol: Well, it's always fun to see how people make their way to VR. We all get here some way. It can be a long and winding road sometimes, or a very direct path in. So Michelle, how about you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself? Michelle: Sure, mine might reflect a long, winding part when it comes to Vocational Rehabilitation, but I've spent my career working with young adults. I started in the health care sector and then moved to juvenile justice. And then spent about 20 years in public child welfare, and I was the director of Adolescent and Young Adult Services for the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families, where I was helping the agency pursue transition related outcomes, one of them being employment with a group of young adults who were going to leave the public child welfare system without returning home or being adopted. So they had their lives, were calling for an enormous amount of independence, saw a lot of inequity when it came to economic stability, and could see a lot of pathways in things that could be done differently. I had worked with MRC a bit in that role and saw what they were doing, and when I realized that they got this funding to help young adults in particular, really try to have gratifying career pathways that were going to help them achieve economic stability in ways that many of their peers have the opportunity to do. I jumped right on it. So that's how I landed with MRC and have been excited to be working in this role ever since. Carol: Very cool. So you're well positioned for the role you're in now. That is great. So, Joan, can you paint us a picture of MRC? Like how many staff do you have? How many people do you serve? A little bit more about what it's like in Massachusetts. Joan: Yeah. So the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission provides services that break down barriers and empower people with disabilities to live life on their own terms. Our programs focus on career services, home and community life, and disability determination for federal benefit programs. We like to say that we're change agents and community builders, and we put the people we serve at the heart of everything we do. I'm the Assistant Commissioner of the Vocational Rehabilitation Division. That division serves over 15,000 individuals annually. We have over 300 staff, which includes directors of our local offices, regional managers, statewide managers, vocational rehabilitation counselors, placement and employment specialists, counselors for the deaf and hard of hearing, various clerical positions, supervisors. And hopefully I haven't missed anyone. The NextGen initiative, which you'll hear about, has some broad and some interesting staffing positions that we hope will inform VR moving forward in the future, and you'll hear more about that later. Carol: So just a side note, I wondered, how are you guys faring kind of coming out of the pandemic? Are you seeing an upswing in the number of people that you're serving? Joan: Absolutely. The numbers are increasing in terms of the numbers being served and also the numbers of individuals who are getting employment. We had a downswing during the pandemic, but now it's moving in the right direction and we're really excited to see that. Carol: Good, that's good to hear. Been kind of hearing that trend across the country and I'm super happy about that. Well, I know your commissioner, Tony Wolf. I think she's amazing. She's done a lot of very cool things. She comes with a whole interesting background as well. And I know she's been super supportive and I feel like is always on the cutting edge of improving services. Talk about the support you've received from Tony and kind of throughout your agency for this project. Joan: Her vision is really to modernize our organization, to modernize the Voc rehab divisions, to be relevant to this generation and future generations of individuals with disabilities. So we're all aligning ourselves. I said earlier, she's got much more energy than all of us combined. So we're trying to keep up with her and her ideas and moving forward. Carol: Very cool. So, Michelle, big picture. Let's break down the grant. What do you propose to do with this grant? And what are you hoping to accomplish? Michelle: So in this grant cycle we are looking to get 1000 NextGen-ers. So young adults 18 to 30 years old with disabilities into career pathways that are STEM related. We're going to do that in a few different ways, but our goal is to really open their minds to see how they can be successful in STEM careers, help them develop the tools that they're going to need to make the right career decision for them, understand how they can be successful and happy, and really achieve that economic stability that you were talking about and I was talking about earlier. It's an Innovation grant. So we're doing things differently than they've been done in the past. One of the things that we're doing is we have a learning experience that we provide to all of our NextGen-ers, and it's called Self CARES. Self CARES is an acronym, stands for Self-capacity self-advocacy, self-realization and Self Sufficiency. So it's really understanding. Ending who you are as a worker, what you want out of that, what your strengths and limitations are, what you're going to need to advocate for yourself once you become someone's employee and how you can work independently. And in NextGen, we don't see independence as being alone. We see it as accessing, first of all, having access to services, being able to access them, and harnessing the things that are available in your life to help you be successful at work. So that's our learning experience, Self CARES. And we also have these really creatively built teams looking at success in other sectors and within vocational rehabilitation itself that we've developed these roles within these teams. They include a peer mentor for every NextGener. The moment that they walk into our doors, we actually walk through their doors because we're community based, which is another innovative component. We have family partners, so the families of all of our NextGen-ers have a partner available to them on our team to ensure that their voice is NextGen-ers life and how they can contribute to a successful career. We also have employment success specialists, we have career counselors. We have specialty counselors for our NextGen-ers with sensory disabilities. We have a specialty counselor for blind low vision, NextGen-ers, and deaf hard of hearing NextGen-ers. And we have regional supervisors because we are based in these communities. We have three communities in the Commonwealth that we're serving right now as part of the grant. What's really different is these teams hold the NextGen-ers together, so it's not a 1 to 1 relationship. For example, with a counselor we're testing out, what is it like when you have these multi disciplines in they're all available to you. And we know that young adults like choice. So they choose who in this team is their team lead who they want to talk to, who they're going to return the text from. You know, who can get them where they want to be. But the rest of the team doesn't go away. They stay right there at the table to bring what they're disciplined forward and help move the young adult into work. Those are the main components of our program. I always look to Joan for a moment because she can fill in what I may have forgotten. Joan: So NextGen is about quick wins. You know, we really want to help the young adults focus on those certificate programs and apprenticeships that are short term. They're not. We're not talking about putting people into a degree program, but a certificate program where there is a demand in the market sector for those skills and that they have a high probability of obtaining employment, making higher wages. Carol: I love that you're doing that, that focus on, you know, everybody always was thinking, you have to have this four year degree or you got to get your master's, you got to get your doctorate. You know, all that. That is not for everyone. And there are so many good careers out there where you just need this little bit, like this certificate or you do the apprenticeship. Lots of people learn better, hands on. I remember my son, one of his friends in high school is an apprentice to be a plumber. I'm like, Chase, he's going to make more money than everybody because everybody needs plumbers. And that was his thing. He doesn't want to go to school and do the book learning. He learns so much better via hands on. So I like that approach because everybody doesn't want to go to college. Joan: Yeah, you know what's really interesting is that right now, because of employers being unable to fill so many positions, everybody is looking at their entrance requirements to say, do we really need somebody with a degree? Is this something that somebody could learn on the job? Is this something if they got a certificate in this particular area, would that be sufficient? So I think we're on the cutting edge. We're on the cutting edge of preparing young adults to meet the demands of the labor market. And we're really excited about this. The good news is that if somebody completes a certificate program, gets a job and decides they want a degree, many employers are paying for those degrees. So the young person doesn't have these huge debts that they need to pay back. So that's one of the exciting things about NextGen. And that's one of the things that we inform the participants about that you can get a degree later if you decide that that's a path that you want to take. Carol: Well, your timing couldn't be more perfect. I mean, I really feel like the pandemic sort of set all this up where people kind of flipped employment on its ear, and people are starting to see that not everybody needs to go to college, and there's lots of different ways to achieve that kind of ultimate career goal that you want to get to. There's a lot of ways to get there. So I think your timing is spot on. So let's talk about the first year. What kind of struggles did you guys encounter? Because I've heard it from the other DIF grantees. They're like, you know, that first year we had some problems, but what kind of struggles did you encounter in year one and what would you have done differently? Michelle: I think that we used the analogy building the plane as you're flying it a lot. We are very optimistic about reaching our goals. Five years is a very short time to pursue some of these things. So Joan was the crafter of the implementation strategy really, and implementing, you know, building the program, opening the program, staffing the program, delivering the service at the same time is a very rapid pace. So I think that the biggest challenge would be the pace. At the same time, we're asking our NextGen-ers to work really hard in a short period of time to get a big outcome. So we've got to be doing the same thing. Joan: You know, it's really funny when you write something on paper. It looks so beautiful and. And somewhat easy you know. But then reality hits that you have to, you know, this is a program that's serving people and you need to be strategic around implementation. And how are you going to deliver what it is that you've promised your funders that you're going to deliver? You know, if there was one thing that I could, we spent a lot of time drafting job descriptions, hiring staff, training staff, setting up infrastructure. If there was one thing that I could change as we rolled into year two and began to do outreach and recruitment, I looked back and said, I wish we had done outreach and recruitment in the first year, with a timeline set as to when the program would start. You know, took us a while to get the momentum going for recruitment. We're actually exceeding recruitment goals right now, but it was very stressful in the beginning thinking we weren't going to meet that number. Carol: So that's a really good tip because I know folks have said the first year is sort of a drag because of the government processes. You have to write your position description and get it approved, and then you've got to post and then you're going to hire. And so you're waiting, waiting, waiting to kind of get going with the program. And then year two, It's like, holy cow, pedal to the metal really quickly, where I love that idea of ramping up and making people aware of what's going on as you're getting these things done. So it isn't quite that just huge forcefulness that needs to happen right away in year two. That makes really good sense. So since you're saying your outreach is going really well, I was going to ask you, I know you guys have a really I call it a groovy way of talking, so I may date myself, but I love how you guys talk about this program because it's exciting. You know, I love your NextGen-ers. I like when you were talking about employee success specialists. Like, I want to be one of those, you know, that kind of cool stuff that you're doing. So how are you connecting with your potential customers? And I'm going to shoot that to you, Michelle. Michelle: Yeah, we have had a really dynamic and exciting outreach and marketing campaign. I have to talk first about our digital and print collateral, because when we were at CSAVR last year, it just flew off the shelf. They were so impressed with it. They wanted it to take it back to their state and see how they could replicate it. Marketing to young adults. Young adults get marketed to a lot, right? They are exposed to things that new ideas and people that want their presence, their money, their time. So you have a lot of competition out there, and you have to think about what's going to get their attention. So we had a digital and print media campaign in multiple languages. We want to ensure that we are serving young adults that have been under engaged in the past, and that includes specific racial and ethnic demographics. So we needed to make sure that the imagery on this collateral looked like them, look like the people we wanted to come into our program with. So diverse representation, they're young adults. Some had visual disabilities in the print collateral. They were living their lives, you know, so that folks could see that and really see themselves represented. And then also in their languages as well. We have multiple languages, and then everything from like the colors that we use to the background we used. We lifted that from other media campaigns that were for young adults specifically that we knew were successful. So real intentionality in a lot of time was put into that and a great partnership with our coms team. They were there before I got to the table and were so excited to do this work, and it really came through and what they were able to produce. We also went to...
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VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Celebrate the National Disability Awareness Month with a DIF Career Advancement Grant Discussion - The Trifecta Approach with Virginia DARS
10/02/2023
VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Celebrate the National Disability Awareness Month with a DIF Career Advancement Grant Discussion - The Trifecta Approach with Virginia DARS
In the studio today is David Leon, Director of Workforce Programs at the Virginia Department for Aging and Rehabilitative Services (DARS), and Kate Kaegi, Project Manager for the DIF. In recognition of Disability Awareness Month, the second podcast of our DIF series includes David and Kate explaining how Virginia's DIF grant was initiated, implemented, and adjusted to best reach their initiatives of placing 750 individuals with disabilities in STEM and healthcare careers, registered apprenticeships, and State, County, and City jobs. Learn about the challenges they navigated and what they recommend when applying for a DIF grant. {Music} David: Don't be afraid to apply for a diff grant. It is an amazing opportunity to infuse energy and enthusiasm into your workforce. It is a chance to stretch, learn new skills, try new programs. You get to see staff flourish and more importantly, get some really cool outcomes for the clients we serve. Kate: I was a little intimidated with the idea of RSA, but what I have found is this RSA is there to help us. They want us to succeed. David: You can accomplish some great things. Speaker1: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow. Carol: Well, welcome to the Manager Minute. Joining me in the studio today is David Leon, director for workforce programs at the Virginia Department for Aging and Rehabilitative Services, or DARS, and Kate Kaegi, project manager for the DEP. So David, how are things going at DARS? David: They are great. We are plugging along, working on our grant. A colleague has a SWITZI grant, so it's been neat to really try a bunch of new things here in Virginia. Carol: Very cool. So how are you Kate? Kate: I am doing spectacular. Thank you for having me here today. Carol: You bet. So, David, you and I had a chance to visit in a podcast on work incentives counseling in April of 22. And just so you know, you were one of my top five downloads. And when I think of Virginia, I always think of you and all the amazing things that have been cooking all the time. You guys always have something in the hopper and this is no different. So I started a series of podcasts focused on the diff grants and career advancement, and you are the second in my series and happened to fall in October with a nod to Disability Employment Awareness Month. So I want to just give our listeners a little snippet again about the diff grant. And so this particular round, the grant activities are geared to support innovative activities aimed at improving the outcomes of individuals with disabilities. And the Career Advancement Initiative model. Demonstrations were funded in federal fiscal year 2021. They were intended to identify and demonstrate practices supported by evidence to assist eligible individuals with disabilities, including previous served participants in employment who reenter the program to do the following. They were looking at advancing in high demand, high quality careers like science, technology, engineering and math, or those Stem careers to enter career pathways in industry driven sectors through pre apprenticeships, registered apprenticeships and industry recognized apprenticeship programs to improve and maximize competitive integrated employment outcomes, economic self-sufficiency, independence and inclusion in society, and to reduce reliance on public benefits like SSI, SSDI, or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and State or local benefits. Now, I remember reading in the announcement some of that sort of I thought it was disturbing data that provided the base for why RSA picked this particular area and chose to fund it. And they based it on the program year 2019, RSA 911 data. And some of the things that they said were participants that were exiting the program in competitive integrated employment reported a median wage of 12 bucks an hour and working like 30 hours a week. And the top ten most common occupations were reported. They were like stock clerks and they were order fillers, customer service reps, janitors, cleaners. I call it the whole Food, Filth and Flowers. So I know through this initiative they were trying to do more. So let's dig into what you guys have cooking in Virginia. David, tell our listeners a little bit about yourself. How did you get to VR? David: Thanks, Carol. Started as a job coach years ago. We won't say when. It'll make me feel old, and I worked for a private nonprofit. I then assisted in Virginia, working with individuals, exiting a training center and moving towards community living. From there, I came back to the Richmond area to work for a community service board and again was a job coach and then worked within a sheltered work and day services program before coming to DARS, where I started with the Ticket to Work program and now have that the work incentives and a few grants and the workforce programs. Carol: You and I have very similar backgrounds. I too was a job coach. I did work in a sheltered workshop for a while as well and all of that. It's always interesting how people find their way to VR. Kate, how about you? Why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and how you got to VR? Kate: I kind of fell into this. A lot of times, similar to other people. Unexpectedly, I found out about East Carolina's rehab program and that they had a scholarship for people who wanted to get their master's. And I'm like, Oh, free money. So I jumped into that. Absolutely loved it. I did my internship at the Wilson Workforce and Rehabilitative Center. It was called something or a different title when I started back in the day. As I tell my kids, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, I was there, started off there as an evaluator and then kind of moved across the state, became a rehab counselor in the field, have done transition counseling, substance abuse counseling, went back to Boca Vale for a little bit, even dipped my toes into the world of job coaching and worked with David for a period of time at the CSV, came back to DARS, worked with the Department for the Blind and Visually Impaired, and also, as an aside, also had joined the military during that timeframe on the reserve side. So I'm out of that at this point. So I have quite an eclectic background. As a supervisor once said that I couldn't make up my mind what I wanted to do, but it was all overall 24 years of work working with individuals with disabilities in a variety of areas. So it really kind of dovetailed well for me to work in the first dif grant that we received prior to this grant where I was a VMA or Virginia Manufacturing Association liaison for our grant. And when we were working on this Phase two grant, it was just pulling from what we've learned previously and growing from there. And so here I am. Carol: I love it, it positions you really well for the work under this new grant. Very cool. Thanks for sharing that. So, David, why don't you paint us a picture of Virginia DARS How many staff do you have? About how many people are you all serving? David: Okay, DARS comprises the Division of Rehabilitative Services, the Disability Determination Services, Aging Services. We have roughly 28 to 30 offices around the state and are currently serving just around 18,000 clients. If you include Pre-ETS in those totals. Carol: that's a bunch., holy cow. I didn't realize you guys were that big. David: Yeah, and that doesn't include however many cases DDS is handling or our aging or the other units. But that's a little bit about DARS, and I like to say we stretch from the Atlantic Ocean all the way to almost as far west as Detroit. If you go down to Bristol, Virginia, which is technically a little further than Detroit. So lots of types of environments and communities and very unique challenges in different areas. Carol: Yeah, so you're definitely facing different geographical issues and I'm sure probably even economic differences. You know, if you're talking the coast versus maybe more of a rural area. So I'm sure there's probably some challenges there with even getting providers or how you're providing services. David: It's interesting. One of the things we've been able to see in, for instance, Southwest Virginia, there is an economic center that's only 16 miles away from an office. But to get there, you go over three mountains and it could take two hours. So are those jobs really accessible to someone without a vehicle? On paper from Richmond, it might look like, why aren't we placing folks in this community out of that office? Well, it's a two hour drive each way, and that's the only way to do it. You mentioned at the beginning those top ten job areas. And one of the things we're really trying to challenge ourselves with now is giving people the information to make an informed decision about a career choice. But if they choose a career that might not look as great, what is the best potential version of that job? What is the job within that sector that actually could become a career? So at the beginning when we were starting to work on this, our agency had been in order of selection for years with categories closed and with the pandemic. That all changed. But the clients we were seeing didn't change and their goals didn't change. I think that's going to be a longer term conversation. But if we can do things to promote the best version of a position. And so I'll just give you one example. And our commissioner, other folks would probably say, why do we have so many folks who want jobs in food service or in this? Because typically they're low paying. Typically there's a lot of turnover. It's hard to become stable. One of the first projects we worked on in this grant was a partnership with a school nutrition program, and we've been able to help a few individuals enter into work in a kitchen at a school where they have the same hours. Monday through Friday. They have the opportunity for benefits. In one case, we couldn't find transportation. That school system was allowing the individual to take the school bus for that person. That's a really stable job and it's somewhere they can grow and thrive for years. So I do want to just say we have to think a little bit differently about what Kate or I or others might think of as a career. How do we find that best option for someone where there is room for growth, but equally important room for that time for stability to get to mastery, to then look at other skills and hopefully down the road they'd come back, not because they lost that job and need it again, but because they've learned so much that they want to go on to the next thing of their own accord. Carol: Yeah, I like that you said that because I remember that when we visited before talking about that best version of that job. So not to mean that no one can work in kind of food, filth and flowers. I know I say that and it sounds sort of condescending and it's not meant to be. But we typically relied on kind of those occupations, really entry level. But I like that you're taking a spin on that and really looking deeper because we need folks to work in those occupations too. And there's people that love doing that work. But how like you say, can you do the best version of that? So you have benefits and you're looking at those long term like working in a school district, you can get retirement and all these different really awesome things that go with that. So, Kate, I'm going to switch to you. So big picture, break it down for us on your grant proposal and what you're hoping to accomplish with I know you had said you have three core components. Talk a little bit about that. Kate: Sure. I do want to make a caveat that I love about this grant is it is a demonstration grant, meaning we have the opportunity to try out innovative products and projects across the state. I just want to put a caveat on that to keep that in your mind as I'm going forward here. So our main goal is to place 750 individuals with disabilities in federal, state, county, city jobs and or registered apprenticeships or also Stem and health careers. So we have those three main components on that. And when we looked at this grant and David worked on the development and the proposal for this, we really wanted to touch individuals that had been kind of missed in the first grant. And this I think, is something as we're doing a grant, you're learning all the time. And we wanted to make sure that we were hitting those unserved and underserved across the state. So individuals that aren't as plentiful in different areas. So say like Winchester has a large Hispanic population, does that reflect the number served in the actual DARS office? How do we get Spanish speaking individuals more involved in DARS? How do we get women who may only recognize those areas that you talked about that flower filth? And because that's what they're aware of, that's the work they've done in the past. So I just need another job in that area. How can we open up some possibilities? Have you thought about the IT field? Have you thought about advanced manufacturing and can you see yourself doing that? So providing those opportunities, it's a way for us to look at those unserved and underserved across the state. And we're defining that as we're going and we're looking at the census data, we're looking at who we're serving within each state. And then we're also looking at our plans, the plans that the rehab counselors are creating. What are those plans? What is the main goal? Overall we see a lot of customer service because it's kind of a catch all. What does that mean? Is that customer service as a helpdesk technician as opposed to just somebody as a receptionist? So we're really helping both the VRC, the counselor, and the candidate explore possibilities like that. Carol: I like that. I just love what you guys are doing and really fundamentally getting down, digging in and really focusing on those folks that have been underserved or unserved and just taking that twist on the occupation because there's a wide range like within customer service, you have the job from here to here. Kate: Exactly. Carol: Yeah, that is very cool. Now, I know you all had some really weird hiccups in the beginning when you were starting out with this particular grant. So what were some of those kind of hiccups and how did you overcome that? And Kate, I'll probably shoot to you first on this. Kate: So part of the thing that I didn't mention was is that the roles that our team players have. So we have a liaison with Department of Labor and Industry, specifically the registered apprenticeship side. So they have their foot in the DOLI world and the foot in the DARS world. We also have a team member who has their foot in the Department of Human Resource Management Liaison, and then also her toes are also dipping in the DARS. So we've had some different team members on that. We also have a quick response, counselor, somebody who can go in and respond to immediate needs of employers, of an individual that might be working with them, that has a disability, that might need some help, whether that's in a registered apprenticeship or on that particular job. During the first year we hired and we had everybody up and running and we had two team members, one had a medical emergency and had to move away from the position because there was some driving involved. And then unfortunately, we had Lisa Hanky, who passed away unexpectedly on us. So, you know, you get all getting that hiring going and then all of a sudden we lost two individuals, so we had to restart that process. David: But Kate, if I can add to that, and I believe this is true for everyone in our round of this DIF funding, I believe we were told two days before the beginning of the project, it was about a day after that that, you know, many agencies coming out of the pandemic have had challenges with staffing and we had those challenges in our procurement division. So getting contracts signed, getting those staff replaced. But the other thing that has been a challenge and we're finally coming out of. We created three positions that this agency has never had, and it had meant that we had to learn how to provide quality support to two other state agencies in the context of working with DARS and similarly with our quick response counselors. So we created these positions that we had an idea of how they could work. But once someone got into those roles and was learning the other agency, we've had to be flexible in understanding how they can actually benefit our clients and our agency. And that has been a learning process. Carol: You guys bring up a really good point because I think sometimes when folks are applying for the DIF grant, you're not recognizing off the get-go That first year can be a struggle because like you said, you found out two days before and then you get the money. And then as we know with any state government, it takes time to hire and like to get through all those processes. And so RSA may be on one hand going like spend the money and you're like, we're trying, but we've got to get through all our HR processes and all this crazy stuff. So it takes a little bit to get rolling in that first year. And I know we often on the TA world are talking with people as they're applying for grants going just know as you're going into it that first year, you're probably not going to spend the amount of funds you projected originally because there's just is a time factor and getting through all of that. Kate: Absolutely. That was the one thought that David and I, if you know, we apply for another one down the road, maybe making that first year a little bit less intensive and spreading it out from year 2 to 5 because that's where the major work will be done. Carol: Yeah, that's smart. Very smart. So I know you guys were talking about some challenges. What are some other particular challenges that you're experiencing right now? Kate: Well, I'll get started on that piece. One of the things we have found similar to the staffing, the challenge that we had when we first started of hiring individuals, we're finding a turnover in staff in DARS. And so we are having a lot of younger counselors that have, in some cases don't have a rehab background. They might have a social work background. So we have a lot of training that we're doing and then redoing on that. We're having a training coming up in October for the VOC rehab counselors and we're getting kind of back to basics. What makes a good referral for our Pathways Grant, looking at those possibilities of not just that receptionist job, let's look at helpdesk. What are the opportunities that are out there? And so that has been kind of a challenge, is just retraining. And I think this is kind of normal across the board. But these rehab counselors are busy. They have a lot more documentation they have to put in Aware. There's a lot more individuals coming through their door because we have the rapid engagements, so they are overwhelmed. And how can we dovetail our services to best support them, how to make the referral process as easy as possible for them, what supports make the most sense for them? So that's been one of the interesting challenges. Carol: So, Kate, have you guys done anything around just the way in which your staff or the support of those counselors, do you have like other staff that are kind of wrapped around them, whether you call them maybe a rehab tech or some sort of a case aide or whatever it might be that can help the counselors with sort of all the documentation requirements and that kind of thing. Have you done some work in...
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VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Career Advancement DIF Grant - Oregon General is Taking on Tough Stuff and Seeing Results
09/01/2023
VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Career Advancement DIF Grant - Oregon General is Taking on Tough Stuff and Seeing Results
Joining Carol in the studio today is Sabrina Cunliffe, Disability Innovation Fund (DIF) Grant Manager, with Oregon General. Find out how Oregon General has tackled some challenging cultural issues and is starting to see great results with their strategy for implementing the DIF grant through their Inclusive Career Advancement Program. {Music} Speaker1: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow. Carol: Welcome to the Manager Minute. Joining me in the studio today is Sabrina Cunliffe Disability Innovation Fund, Inclusive Career Advancement Program Manager, or DIF grant manager for short with Oregon General. So Sabrina, how are things going in Oregon? Sabrina: Oh gosh. Oregon has five seasons, fall, winter, spring, summer and fire season. So it is currently fire season. It looks like a little post-apocalyptic nightmare outside right now, but other than that, we're doing really well. Carol: I'm sorry to hear that, though. There's been a lot of the wildfires this year that have been so devastating. Sabrina: Absolutely. Carol: Well, I'm really glad you're here today. And I just want to take a couple of minutes to give our listeners a little bit of background on the Disability Innovation Fund grants. And so in this particular round, grant activities are geared to support innovative activities aimed at improving outcomes of individuals with disabilities and the Career the Advancement Initiative model demonstration. And these were funded in FY 2021 were intended to identify and demonstrate practices that are supported by evidence to assist eligible individuals with disabilities, including previously served VR participants in employment who reenter the program to do kind of four of the following things to advance in high demand, high quality careers like science, technology, engineering and math, or those Stem careers, to enter career pathways in industry driven sectors through pre apprenticeships, registered apprenticeships and industry recognized apprenticeship programs, to improve and maximize their competitive integrated employment outcomes, economic self-sufficiency, independence and inclusion in society, and to reduce the reliance on public benefits like SSI and SSDI and or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Now I remember reading the application and kind of the notice and all of that, and there was really actually some disturbing data that provided the base for RSA and why this particular area was chosen to fund. And they were looking at the program year 2019, RSA 911 data, and it said things like this, like approximately 80% of the participants were earning less than 17 bucks an hour. And in fact, participants who exited the program in competitive integrated employment reported a median wage of 12 bucks an hour and median hours at 30 hours a week. And the ten most common occupations that were reported by one third of the participants who exited in CIE were stock clerks and order fillers, customer service reps, janitors, laborers, stack material movers, retail salespersons, cashiers, food prep survey, including fast food production workers and dishwashers. It's that whole food, filth, kind of the flowers thing I used to call it. And I know they probably were focusing on career pathways because RSA had also done a competition back in 2015 and they awarded for career pathways for individuals with Disabilities projects under a demonstration training program. And furthermore, Congress made career pathways a necessary, if not foundational, part of WIOAs workforce reform. And so you put all of this together just to put a little under our belt, I just wanted people to have a little bit of a base. Like, what on earth are they picking and why are they doing this? So let's dig in and learn more about you in the project. So can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and what your journey was getting to VR? Sabrina: Sure, Carol. I started out going to college, majoring in business, working in the corporate world, doing that sort of thing, did that for several years, and then life sort of caught up with me. And I had children and my second child was born with cerebral palsy. And when that happens, it kind of changes your whole view on the world and you start to find out about disability in a way that you never really knew, and you really dig into the systems that exist and see what's available for your people in the world. And what I saw was, you know, the long trajectory of my son's life. And I decided, hey, you know what? I'm going to leave the corporate gig behind. I'm going to go back to graduate school, study disability awareness, study disability services ended up leading to rehab counseling, became a rehab counselor in the state of Oregon in 2009 and then was a branch manager starting in 2013. And then just about a year and a half ago, signed up to take on this innovation grant so that I can maybe change the system from the inside out a little bit was really what happened for me and why VR is so important and critical? Carol: I love your story because we all come with these different stories and how we got involved in this field and some people fall into it a variety of different ways. But I really like your journey and I think it'll give our listeners a great perspective as they hear you because it's super fun, your passion and and all of that. So can you give us some facts too, about Oregon General? Like how many staff and customers do you have? Sabrina: Yeah, so we have approximately 275 employees in Oregon that work for Oregon General, and we serve roughly 10,000 customers annually. I would say it used to be a lot more pre-pandemic than it is now or working through that. And we serve customers across 13 individual VR branch offices. So there's 13 branches, 20 offices throughout the state. Oregon has four very distinct economies that are geologically diverse and geographically diverse. We have that Oregon, Portland metro area, and then we have very much rural eastern Oregon and we have the coast and then the southern Willamette Valley and southern Oregon regions. So it's sort of like working in four different states all at the same time in a lot of ways. Carol: I didn't realize that about Oregon. I was thinking about it. I knew you had some sort of rural nature, but really thinking about those four different distinct areas, that does always pose a big challenge, I'm sure, with both staffing and just as far as getting service provision. Sabrina: Right, running a statewide program and trying to make it locally based and locally run and locally honored can have its own special challenges for sure. Carol: Absolutely. So what prompted Oregon General to apply for this grant? Sabrina: So you may or may not know that Oregon had probably the worst, if not the second worst. We might have been the second worst as far as data in that RSA911 that they based these grants on for measurable skill gains and credential attainment just in the tank, really. And it's something that that we knew that we needed to change for WIOA 2014. And we just never really got with the program in changing the culture of VR to really talk about optimal level of employment and to fully bring post-secondary education into the fold to get those credentials and those Measurable Skill Gains that we needed. And in Oregon, we have this beautiful, robust, existing career pathway system within Oregon's community colleges with hundreds of different career pathways nationally recognized that VR was completely under utilizing. And so what a great opportunity for us to partner with Oregon community colleges and change the culture of Oregon VR, really to see post-secondary education as a gateway to optimal level of employment that we needed to be focusing on. Carol: Well, the only place to go is up then, from where you were. No. You know, when you start kind of in the basement, you're like, all right... Well, we're climbing out of it. Good on you. So can you give us a big overview of the project? I know you have these different arms of things you wanted to do. Sabrina: So ICAP - Inclusive Career Advancement Program is what we named our grant, and it supports a minimum of 500 people with disabilities, including those from marginalized communities. So 45% from black, indigenous, people of color communities in Oregon to help them choose a career pathway of interest, access post-secondary education, participate in that training or the internships in those high demand career fields. Obtain the credentials in their career field that's chosen, and then to also help them gain the employment upon completion of their program and we're doing that through installing a career coach in 16 of the community colleges across Oregon. So in one FTE position at the college, that's the boots on the ground person to be that conduit between the counselor and the community college. And the difference between this mean you might see navigators with Department of Labor or with all sorts of other different programs. But what's different about ICAP is that that career coach is specifically trained around people with disabilities, the specific needs of people with disabilities, really looking at the intersectionality of race and disability, of poverty and disability and all of those things that often people with disabilities don't have success or as much success with those other navigators because very specific disability barriers are lost on them. And so huge emphasis on that. We have four core partners. It's Oregon VR, it's the main grantee, and then we have Portland Community College, which is a Subawardee that manages all of the individual sub grants with each individual community college. And then we have Oregon Commission for the Blind because we wanted the Oregon Commission for the Blind to have their participants be able to participate in our program as well. We have two of them already, which is fantastic. And then Cornell University or the Yang-Tan Institute on Employment and Disability, there are evaluation partner and also our training and provider for this grant. Carol: I'm so glad that you partnered too, with your blind agency. Sometimes we've got states where you know you're both there, but it's not always good communication between you, so that is great. Sabrina: And then we just have the GEPRAs. I just wanted to touch on those real quick so people know what we're measuring. We're 500 people is the target of those 45% need to be from black, indigenous and people of color communities. So that'd be 225. We need to have 375 of those that start finish and of those 375 that get a credential, we need another 75% of those to actually get competitive, integrated employment within the span of the grants timeframe. And then 75 Percent of those people to get hourly wage gains, 50% of those to get employer provided medical benefits. 65% of those also need to increase the hours that they worked from whenever they came in to whenever they left. And then we need to also track if anybody got a promotion or any additional responsibilities or anything like that between when they get the job and when the grant ends. And then also reporting about whether or not they are receiving less or no public benefits with 35% hopefully having their competitive integrated employment be their primary source of support. Carol: So you're going big or going... Sabrina: Big or go home. Exactly. Carol: That's right. So what are you seeing as the biggest challenges? Sabrina: Oh, gosh. When we decided to do this innovation grant, we could have gone two ways. We could have had ICAP be separate and apart and ran it completely independently of the larger program. And we decided not to do that. We decided to fully integrate it into the existing program. All ICAP participants must be VR participants. All VR counselors can work with ICAP participants, no specialization of any kind. So we needed to completely train the entire staff about this cultural shift, about what it means to have optimal level of employment, to teach them how to write post-secondary ed plans that work, how to do the comprehensive assessment in a way that we're really, truly looking at interest, ability, skills, resources, priorities, concerns all through an informed choice lens and making optimal level of employment happen. And not just for lack of a better term, McJobbing people left and right and hiring job developers and punting and seeing how it goes for folks. And so that is our innovation for our grant. It doesn't sound like much, but it's huge for us to be able to do that work. And so, of course, the first challenge we have is the amount of time it takes for someone to become a participant. It's not like we could just sign them up for ICAP. They had to go get in line at VR, and in Oregon, Sometimes that can take up to three months. By the time they get asked, call the office, ask for an intake, meet with the counselor, found eligible for our services. And when you're working with particularly youth and students that are going from high school and potentially entering a career pathway, they might decide that they want to start a career pathway two weeks beforehand. And so our system and the career pathway system had to really say, we need to look at this, right? We're starting to really pay attention as an agency to figure out what several other states are doing. Some states are finding people eligible within three days or 17 days. And we're looking at all of those different ways in which we can change that. That's a larger process that's going to have to happen. But what the ICAP Grant did was really shine a light on it and gave us some really cool data of something that everybody knew but that nobody had really codified in writing and reported to the RSA. And so here we are. That challenge has been identified and it's definitely something that we're going to have to address. We've, of course made lots of little shortcut solutions in there to address the ICAP grant. But as far as the larger program, it's kind of front and center. Now that particular issue. The second biggest challenge that we have is that while we thought we had a great post-secondary ed policy, what we found out that it was really how to rule people out, not how to rule people in policy, and it created an exorbitant amount of red tape for counselors. No counselor wanted to do it because it was an extra three hours worth of work with a participant. Right. Who would want to go through all these checklists and make sure all of these things are in place and fight these fights with the financial aid offices and do all of this stuff that was required in our policy that just seemed like we're going to figure out every way to not support post-secondary ed. So one of the first things that we did was identify that and we completely rewrote our post-secondary ed policy, took out all of the language that you shall and you must and made it seem very inclusive. And you know what? Tell us what you want to do. Let's figure out what supports you need so that you can be successful. We're going to do that and we're going to remove all that paperwork piece for the VRC to be able to feel confident in doing that. And we also had these things with every branch manager, had to approve every plan that a counselor wrote for any post-secondary ed that was removed completely. And it's given autonomy and trust to the counselor to make these judgments that they need to make in their jobs. And so that just came out a week and a half ago, though. So we haven't seen the impact of it yet completely. But one of the most exciting challenges and solutions that we've had to date, what's great, we have Cornell University on doing our and training. We've probably done over 50 trainings in the last year and a half, really looking at the discernment for appropriate use of training through an what does that mean for someone and how do we write those plans? Just creating fake plans, really. I have plans, samples that are like for IB CAPPY so counselors know how to reflect the services and the plan. They know how to write them effectively. They know how to really understand. And their decision making and how to have those critical thinking moments and how to have the conversations with the client that are more appropriate when you have a lot of counselors that have been discouraged for years from doing this work. It can be kind of scary as they learn these new steps and when people kind of make decisions out of fear, they do it either with, Oh, you can do whatever you want and there's no accountability. That's probably half the VRCs, and the other half is, No, you can't do this because I need to have control over this and make sure that I can control the outcome, right? So finding that middle ground, empowering clients, empowering VRCs to do the work has been absolutely huge. We'll be ongoing for the duration of the program and then lack of equitable workflow for coaches. So we were silly kind of when we designed this in the beginning and we didn't realize that there are 17 community colleges in Oregon, but they are vastly different in their capacity. And so we started out with everybody is going to serve, you know, the same amount of participants in the grant and what we found out, that's not going to work because Portland Community College, you know, has seven campuses within the Portland metro area and has 30 different VRCs that are referring to the program. We're out in eastern Oregon. There's two VRCs and one community college with only 14 career pathways, right? So we couldn't expect the same result from rural schools as we have from metro schools. And so really not looking at it through an equality lens, but an equitable lens for our performance measures through each of the individual community colleges is something that we're doing when we start serving students at the beginning of this year. And hopefully that will give our numbers more meaning and have people feel more respected in where they're at and what they can actually do. Carol: Well, I love that you're digging into these very tough challenges, and I know things like our policies and procedures, words do matter. I mean, it sets a tone for your counselors. And we've seen this with lots of states. When we do TA work, you know, people will be like, thou shalt not, you know, and everything that the customer has to do and we will not pay for this or do this. And you have to prove yourself and all of that. When you flip all those words around, it does send a message, even if it's subliminally to those people that are reading it can just see that in other states you see this cultural shift happening because you're looking at this more positively. You're focusing more on like a person's strengths instead of all the reasons they can't do something. I think digging in and all your kind of warts, so to speak. Sabrina: Yeah. And to watch someone go from having a process driven agency to a people driven agency just warms my heart. It just feels really good. Carol: See, that's all you West Coast folks, because Joe Xavier started the charge with that because he's like, We're not going to let the paperwork get in the way of the people. Like we got to remember the people are here first. And so you're picking up on that, too. And you also have created new acronyms with the IBCAPPY or whatever. That is very cool. So obviously you've got all these things, you're digging in and you're doing this stuff, but how like I know you said you wanted everybody in the organization to be able to do this, so you didn't keep this all separate. But structurally,...
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VRTAC-QM Manager Minute - Maximizing VR Services: Leveraging Resources so Counselors Can Get Back to Counseling - Wisconsin VR- Stout Partnership
08/08/2023
VRTAC-QM Manager Minute - Maximizing VR Services: Leveraging Resources so Counselors Can Get Back to Counseling - Wisconsin VR- Stout Partnership
Joining Carol Pankow in the VRTAC-QM studio is Delora Newton, Division Administrator for the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, and Kyle Schemenauer, Director of Services, Eligibility and Order of Selection Unit at the Stout Vocational Rehabilitation Institute (SRVI). Delora and Kyle talk about the partnership that reduces the time for eligibility determination while freeing up counselors' work time by outsourcing and streamlining the pre-eligibility work to SRVI. This partnership has brought an objective and consistent process utilizing a per-customer rate fee. It has been working for Wisconsin VR as applicant rates are soaring, keeping SVRI busier than ever. VRTAC-QM Manager Minute - Maximizing VR Services: Leveraging Resources so Counselors Can Get Back to Counseling - Wisconsin VR- STOUT Partnership {Music} Speaker1: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow. Carol: So welcome to the Manager Minute. Joining me in the studio today is Delora Newton, Division Administrator for the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, and Kyle Schemenauer, Director of Services, Eligibility and Order of Selection Unit at the Stout Vocational Rehabilitation Institute. Holy cow. That was a mouthful. So how are things going, Delora? Delora: Going great. I agree. I thought mine was a mouthful. But Kyle is even more than mine. Carol: It is. It's kind of funny. How are you doing, Kyle? Kyle: Doing good. Doing good. Easy. We could abbreviate to Director of services. How about that? Carol: I like giving you the full shebang. The full glorious title. So I want to give our listeners a little bit of context. Wisconsin had embarked on a project to free up counselor time. It was way back in 2015, and the premise was to have SVRI program at Stout handle the applications and gather that pre eligibility information that is packaged up, passed to the Wisconsin VR counselors for making the eligibility determination. And Delora's staff have discussed this at previous conferences, but we are all well aware of the seismic shift in leadership across the country over this past decade. And I mean, I know I thought, Delora, I think you did too. We thought, oh, everybody already knows this, but there actually is a whole new group of leaders who have never heard of this idea. And I actually think people are really at a different place in being open to new ideas and ways of operating post pandemic. I feel like folks thought and I know I did when I was sitting in the audience, Oh, that's a cool idea. But I really didn't know how I would pursue that or how it would apply when I was working at Minnesota Blind. And so given that State of VR today, I think it's timely to bring up all the options that could be available for states to pursue when it comes to leveraging resources to make VR services happen. The other thing that's really cool about your project is that it's kind of withstood the test of time. So let's dig in. So Delora, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how long you've been with the agency and how many staff and consumers that you serve? Delora: Yeah. Thanks. I have maybe a unique story for being a VR director. I came to VR in a roundabout way. I am not or have I ever been a licensed counselor in Wisconsin. Division administrators were political appointees, and so before coming to VR, I had served elected officials in the state capital for almost ten years. I also have several years of experience working for various businesses and business related nonprofits. So I actually started working for the Department of Workforce Development. That's who VR is aligned with in Wisconsin. So I started working for the Department of Workforce Development in July of 2014, and then I was actually hired as the administrator for the Division of Workers Compensation in August of 2015. So the Secretary's office in the Department of Workforce Development was very pleased with what I was doing there in workers comp, and there was an opening for a director in VR. And so they asked me if I would make the move. So I did. And since that time I've used my knowledge of the state's law making and budgeting processes, my management skills, my understanding of small business needs to lead Wisconsin VR along very several very talented managers. I am so blessed to have them. They have the counseling degrees and the historical knowledge of the federal regulations that I lack. So I've learned a lot along the way and I feel blessed to work with such a great team who positively change lives every day. And you asked about how many people we have. We have about 335 staff if we are full up. So we're located in 42 offices around the state so that we're close by where our consumers are. And counselors can also travel to where the consumers are. They don't have to come to the office. And a lot of things are being done virtually these days as well. And we were serving with open cases, about 16,500 consumers each year.. Carol: Wow! You know, I didn't know that background about you, Delora. That explains a lot because I always think you've had this super practical approach. You're very, you know, even keel and the way you've talked about kind of things you've implemented in Wisconsin, I think that serves you well. You bringing that background and having some of that other expertise in the regs and the different things, and then pairing it with your Meredith and all your other, you know, great folks there. Gosh, that's a great team. Good to know. So, Kyle, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and your role with the SVRI Stout group? Kyle: Yeah. So I come in, I'd be just shy of seven years now that I've been in my role here at. SVRI. And prior to that a couple of years in higher ed and disability services and then about six years or so in the VR world, in a local agency here that provided VR services. So as a service provider to Wisconsin. So all in all, I've been working with Wisconsin VR for almost 15 years and the service provider end of things. Yeah. And you know, kind of like Delora mentioned, I have a different path that kind of took a long path and have never been a VR counselor or anything like that, but have been in supervisory and director roles basically my whole professional career. Yeah. And that's got me here today, I guess. Carol: Very cool. Well, and a little fact about me. I was not a VR counselor either, so I think a lot of us came into VR from a variety of different ways, but it's all good. So Delora let's go back to 2015. You came on board with Wisconsin VR and when you arrived, I know there was this confluence of things that had happened. Set the stage for us a little bit on what was going on that caused your staff to create this idea, and then you came into the picture and you helped them to implement it. Delora: Yeah, well, again, it goes back to being a talented team. They're very innovative and creative and trying to come up with, you know, different ways to address issues. So they started this work before me. So when the law was when WIOA was signed into law in July of 2014 and, you know, they were looking at all the new things that VR was going to have to do. They were like, Wow, we need to try to find a way to address the additional administrative workload requirement for staff so that they can be able to prioritize their time to actually serving active consumers. So at that time, it was estimated that the VR counselors were spending up to 20% of their time processing applications. I mean, that's a lot, a lot that included getting consent forms signed and gathering the records that were needed to be determine eligibility. You know, things like the medical educational records. Et cetera. And then going back and forth with the consumers in communication or the applicants, actually, they would be applicants at that time. Also, at the same time, Wisconsin's Legislative audit bureau had done a report, and that report showed that eligibility outcomes were lower than anyone would like and that they were taking longer than people wanted them to. And then in addition, those eligibility determinations across the state were inconsistent. And what that means is, you know, we have 11 different workforce development areas. I told you we have 42 offices. And so depending on where you were in the state, you might have been using a little bit different of a process. So we thought or my staff at the time thought that development of a more objective and streamlined eligibility review process could really help address those issues. So DVR managers reviewed the law and they were like, Huh, Could we outsource the administrative elements of the eligibility process? So they talked to RSA. We're very good about talking to RSA up front before we do a big new initiative that saved us quite a bit. So they talked to RSA to make sure that outsourcing was allowable and RSA confirmed it was possible as long as the rehab counselors that were employed by the state agency reviewed the eligibility recommendation provided by the contracted entity or and that those counselors remained responsible for making the official eligibility determination. So knew that UW Stout and would be a perfect partner for the project. We have had a long standing history of collaboration with them and both UW Stout and SVRI are public entities operating in different roles, but with a common goal of increasing quality employment outcomes for individuals with disabilities. SVRI operates as a nonprofit within the university and can serve as an innovation incubator to pilot new ideas and approaches that can then be expanded or replicated. Carol: I love that, you know your team, they're smart. I always look to Wisconsin like you guys are the one state agency that didn't have any monitoring findings. Like, you guys are always the people. You're on the edge and you aren't always out there chit-chatting about it. You know, you'll talk at a conference, but you aren't out, you know, widely promoting what you're doing. You all just are head down doing the work, but you're doing really creative things. And I love that you talked about engaging RSA because sometimes folks are thinking about these really great ideas and you don't talk to the federal partner and you might have a little element of this wrong. So that was really good advice that our listeners can take into anything that they're doing. Like it's really good to engage your federal partner just to make sure you don't go down the wrong path. Now, clearly you can't roll out something like this without taking some sort of staged approach. So what was the implementation process like in the beginning? Delora: Yeah, you are right, a staged approach was really key. And so we launched the initiative as a pilot project in the fall of 2014, and then DVR and SVRI leadership started meeting weekly to design the pilot. So they talked about several different funding models and DVR opted to design it as a new service and then use case service dollars to fund the process per applicant. So we recognize that SVRI they were going to have high startup costs, you know, and we recognize that. And so we wanted to pay a higher rate initially to help them offset those higher start up costs. And then once those were covered, we started paying a lower set rate per case. And that model has worked really well because it provided SVRI with a boost to help with those initial costs. And then we could account for each expenditure because it was connected to a case. So then in May of 2014, SVRI initially hired ten staff for that pilot phase, and their leadership team provided close supervision and support as that new service was implemented and also DVR provided a multi-day, in-depth training to that new team in May of 2015. And then ongoing training was provided as needed. After that, we also provided extensive training to our staff, including directors, supervisors, counselors and support staff, so that no matter who you were on the team, you understood what the new process was going to be. And then we started piloting that new service in our southeast part of the state, which is the largest population center. For people who aren't really familiar with Wisconsin. That includes Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha, you know, a very large population area of the state. And we started that in May of 2015. And then a phased model was used to expand the service statewide by the summer of 2016. And as more of our areas were added then SVRI hired more staff. So by the end of the first full year of implementation, SVRI was processing more than 10,000 applicants annually on behalf of DVR. So it ramped up very quickly. I think if we had to do it over again, we would probably have phased it in a little bit slower. But, you know, those are some of the takeaways and the lessons that you learn. But overall, it worked really, really well. Carol: That's a lot when you talk about that 10,000 applicants. I know I keep that number. When you said in the beginning, really that your staff were spending 20% of their time, you know, processing applications. Holy cow. I mean, this leveraging, you know, of these other services definitely helped you out. So now I know you also Delora did in the beginning kind of had this little bit of a situation or kind of the pushback from the counselors where maybe they were challenging some of the work done by SVRI. Can you talk a little bit about that? Delora: Yeah, we knew going into it that we had inconsistent eligibility determinations across the state, which meant that all of our counselors weren't doing it the same. At the time we had almost 200 counselors reviewing those applications and then making the eligibility determinations based on their training and interpretation of the regs. And we all know that our regs are not black and white. They are gray. So people interpreted them a little bit differently. And of course, everybody believed that their way was the correct way to do it. So when SVRI had a dedicated team that was reviewing those applications and recommending the eligibility determinations, remember, recommendation is a key word here. The recommendations became a lot more consistent across the state because you had a set group of people who was doing it no matter where they were. So counselors have to make that final determination to stay compliant with the regs. Some of the counselors disagreed with the SVRI recommendations, so we had our managers review those disputed recommendations. And funny or not funny, however you want to look at it, they determined that most of what SVRI was recommending was actually correct mean some of our counselors weren't doing it correctly. So our managers, you know, also regularly conferred with SVR leadership about the feedback and the questions that we got from counselors so we could update processes as soon as possible if they needed updating. Sometimes more training was required for SVRI staff and sometimes more training was required for our counselors. But it was a joint effort of, okay, here's what we're seeing. You know, talking to Kyle, here's what we're seeing, here's what they're seeing. What do we need to adjust? So it was a very collaborative process. Carol: Yeah, I really like that. And I'm sure any time you go into a new venture, you know, and staff are like they're kind of suspicious of what's happening and are you taking my work away? Even though people are like, it took 20% of my time, I don't want that work, yet, I don't want somebody else to do it either. So that sounds like that was handled really well. Now, Kyle, kind of switching to you a little bit, you came on board at the end of 2016 when the project was fully staffed. What challenges did you face as you were fully rolling all of this out? Kyle: Yeah. As anything new in growing a new kind of business is getting the buy-in of one.. your staff, but then of your partners. So it was one continuously growing. So things, systematically things are changing, processes. We're trying to be as efficient and effective as we possibly can. So training, all of that, making sure we have the right staff, developing that communication and trust with Wisconsin VR, trusting in the process of what we're doing. So with anything new that was, you know, our biggest challenge is, is establishing the lines of communication and doing it the right way and getting the buy-in from both our staff, but then the VR staff as well, that we're in it for one thing, and that's the consumers. And we're here to do it together and make it the way it's supposed to be and provide that consistency across the board. It was a lot of training and education on both ends. It was our staff needing some time to kind of stand their ground of, well, this is our process and this is how we do that. And really just continuously to work together. In my role, it was continuously still hiring, even coming in at my spot at that point, we had that turnover, we had that that transition of anything new where you got your certain staff that were certainly bought in, maybe some staff that wasn't for you. So it was the growing pains of anything new. So facing that, plus then facing the referrals coming in and really just gearing up and making sure that we're providing the service that we say that we're going to provide and doing that. So yeah, it brought its own challenges, but working with VR in the past, having local VR connections and things like that on my perspective really helped kind of me and I guess maybe building that trust with VR and just being completely transparent in who we are and what we're trying to do. Carol: I think it's cool. It's really evident you guys have a very good working relationship. I just wondered too, Kyle, kind of a little follow up. Did you ever think like, I keep thinking about 10,000, you know, like you had to do 10,000 applicants. Was that at all in your brain that it was going to be that many to handle? Kyle: You know, maybe not, but we can do it. When you look at what's coming at you week to week, obviously that's accumulating. And over the time at the end of the year, yeah, we've served that many individuals and that's just amazing. And we have a great team of staff that, you know, we still have staff, the original kind of 10 or 8 staff. We have some of those staff that are still with us yet today from the beginning. And we do have a lot of longevity now since really myself coming in and some staff even before me coming in. So it's been great to see. It's been great to see us continue to evolve together and working on little mini pilots within this to be more efficient and more rapid engaging with the consumer and stuff. So it's come a long ways and it's been a great partnership. Carol: That's very cool music to my ears. That rapid engaging of those consumers. I like it. So Delora, as with any new initiative or initiatives that you go on, you've got staff that love it, you got people that hate it. How do you deal with those perspectives of staff? I'm sure you probably still maybe have a little rumblings of that as you go along. Delora: Yeah, there has been rumblings a little bit, but as time goes on and we have more new counselors come in, they don't even know any different. So what we just continue to stress when we hear grumbling is that having SVRI handle the administrative side of collecting those applications and the related documents gives counselors more time to do what they want to do, which is actually offer rehabilitation counseling. It also has given counselors...
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VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: (Part 2) - Where did all the staff go? Addressing your Retention Woes - A Conversation with Dr. Jim Herbert -Penn State.
07/05/2023
VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: (Part 2) - Where did all the staff go? Addressing your Retention Woes - A Conversation with Dr. Jim Herbert -Penn State.
Dr. Jim Herbert, Professor of Counselor Education and Rehabilitation and Human Services at Penn State, is back in the studio today. In this second part of a two-part series, Jim discusses the retention challenges identified in his study- Recruitment and Retention of State Vocational Rehabilitation Counselors: A Mixed Methods Analysis. Please listen in as Carol and Jim continue to unpack this study and have a frank discussion about the significant challenges and possible solutions you can apply to your situation. Be sure to check out the Recruitment side of the study by Dr. Jim Herbert in the previous episode of Manager Minute. {Music} Speaker1: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow. Carol: Well, welcome to the Manager Minute. Joining me back in the studio today is Dr. Jim Herbert, professor of counselor, education and Rehabilitation and Human services at Penn State. Now we're going to discuss the second part of his study, recruitment and retention of state vocational rehabilitation counselors, a mixed methods analysis. And I'm super happy to have you back with me today. Jim, how's it going? Jim: It's going well and I'm excited to be with you this morning with the podcast and appreciate the opportunity to kind of build on some of the information that we talked about in the earlier one. Carol: Absolutely. I'm super excited. And for our listeners out there that did not get to listen to the first part of this podcast in June. Please do go back and look in the archives and you can listen to that so you get the full picture because Jim really painted a great foundational piece on the study that he had done, and we focused on one half of his work. And now today we're going to focus on the other half because there's a lot of really good information to unpack. So as I had said, you know, this is a second part of our two part conversation. We're going to focus on the retention aspects of your study today. And just to set the stage for our listeners again who maybe did not listen last month. I first met you through the CSAVR Operations and Personnel Committee, and I used to co-chair the old HRD committee that was evolved into the new Operations and Personnel Committee. But I did that with Cynthia Speight, and I continued to participate after I entered into this TA world. And Cynthia and I had been interested in this recruitment retention topic going back at least eight years. We were doing some different surveys with our states to see what was happening, and we just saw this shrinkage of people entering the field, the reduction in universities offering a master's in rehab counseling and knew back then even like we've got to do something. So I was really pleased to see your work and you had come to the committee to collaborate on this study that you were doing that was supported in part by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living and Rehab Research, which is NIDILRR. And in the executive summary, you noted there had been this consistent shortage of qualified rehab counselors employed by the state federal VR program for several decades. I guess you know, some of us were thinking, Gosh, this has really been like the last ten years. Uh, this is actually been going on for a while. But the Covid 19 pandemic, I think, exacerbated the shortage. And so today we're going to look at this again, the retention aspects of your study. So let's dig in. And I do want to go over a few things in case our listeners, you know, didn't have a chance to hear you last time. So, Jim, can you just tell them again a little bit about yourself and how long you've been in academia and how did you get there? Jim: Okay, so I'm an old guy. I've been here, as I kind of explained in the first podcast, I'll just kind of abbreviate. Yeah, I've been an academic for about 37 years and prior to that I worked as a work adjustment counselor and job placement specialist research specialist. So I've been around and as I explained in the initial podcast, like many of you, I became interested in rehabilitation as a result of having a family member with a disability and then started doing some volunteer work. Absolutely loved the field and I loved doing Voc Rehab because I could see kind of the difference that that you can make and you can impact on improving the quality of life for people with disabilities. So if you want to read more about my background, you have nothing to do and you have trouble sleeping at night. You can just look me up at the Penn State and within two minutes I'm sure you'll be falling asleep after reading my bio. So that's the deal. Carol: I love it. I love it. So many of us did that, though. We kind of fell into it. I fell into it with my mom used to be the volunteer corridor coordinator at the state hospital in Faribault where I grew up. So she used to bring me up to the Pink Ladies canteen where they had donuts and treats and things that the residents of the campus could come in. And I remember being five and on campus and working with all these people with developmental disabilities and other disabilities and just got super interested in the work kind of through her and having people over to our house for Thanksgiving and Christmases and different holidays. It was super fun and I just grew up in that. And so that is the same case with many of our listeners, I'm sure. So last month we talked about the first part of your study. Today we're going to get into the retention aspect. So let's talk about the retention challenges that you identified in the study. So what are those top challenges VR is facing? Jim: Yeah, so part of our study, what we did, the first part, we basically interviewed state directors. We had them complete an online survey, but then we did about 20 interviews to sort of unpack. A little bit more. And basically we identified and I'm not sure to be frank, if this part is going to be new information for your readers or for the listeners. But it sets up what I want to talk about how do we address these problems of retention? So when we look at why are counselors leaving? Okay, well, the first thing I'm sure your listeners like no surprise on this one. Low salaries, big number one problem graduates coming out of programs now realize and also people are currently working in the field realizing I think in essence kind of the power really that they have. And I think this is sort of a nationwide thing. People are starting to realize, I've got choice, I have options and I want to exercise those. And so we've got to understand that and be receptive to that. So low salaries and we'll talk about, well, what can we do about that aspect? But just for introductory purposes, that's a big, big reason we're losing people to the Veterans Administration. We're losing them to community mental health programs, we're losing them to universities and colleges such as like the disability support services or even sometimes a career placement services. I know former alum from our program here at Penn State who've been in the state system for a long time and left to work at university settings such as disability services or career development. You know, the issue with that is, of course, when you think about the investment with the RSA training program coupled with the two years post-graduation that they have to use for the payback, well, that's a tremendous amount of investment that we've made in unfortunately we're losing them because after they do their two year payback, they're saying there's some other opportunities. Another big problem, and this is particularly true, I think, of the newer graduates, one of the things we know from research is that many counselors, what they do not enjoy is the amount of paperwork process information that's involved with the job data entry, documentation that's involved with that. And I've heard a number of students will say, I didn't get a master's degree in counseling to sit in front of a computer and enter data. I recognize that's a part of the job, I recognize there's information that needs to be recorded. But for the Gen Z and the millennials in particular, they want to work with clients directly. They want to have that client contact. They enjoy working with people. That's a lot different from interacting on a screen or processing paperwork in that way. So while data management, that's a critical part of the job, we've got to think of some other ways of how can we work with particularly the graduate trained personnel, more efficiently and more effectively in a way that benefits the whole mission of the program? That's a big reason why people are leaving. Another problem kind of related to that caseloads. And while it's different, I think with specialized caseloads such as people who work with persons who are visual impairments, vision loss, blindness, hearing deafness, while their caseloads are lower counselors with general caseloads, it's not unheard to have caseloads of around 200. I mean, that's. So how do you develop an effective working relationship when you have to interact with 200 people? The answer is you can't or it's difficult. So I mentioned these three problems because I think it provides a context for what are we going to do about that? How do we address those kinds of things that are underlying? So that's what we're going to be kind of diving into today. Carol: Yeah, I agree. I appreciate you setting that backdrop because those are all things as I was reading the study, I'm like, Oh, absolutely. And I keep thinking if folks are continuing to be organized the way they were pre-wioa as far as staffing and structure and roles and responsibilities, man, you really need to rethink that because there are opportunities and I think we'll get into this. There's a lot of cool stuff folks can be looking at doing now differently. We talked about this in the first podcast, you know, about, well, we've always done it that way and I think in VR we can tend to fall into that trap. And you forget like, Hey, we are inventive, creative people. We have got to approach this in a different way. So let's talk about that. Let's get into what are some of the retention strategies I know the state vocal rehab directors believe would contribute to retention. There were a number of things that you had in the study I thought were pretty cool. So let's unpack some of those. Jim: All right. Well, let's tackle the big problem, the salary issue. And we've mentioned this a little bit in the earlier last month's podcast, but we've got to take a look at what is the salary structure. Okay. And are there ways that we can adjust that And just in terms of wages or benefits. Now, the first thing is, no, we can't. It's too difficult. It's, you know, it's really about. That's true. But at the same time, I know from talking with directors and to come to mind, Kentucky and North Carolina, where there are states, Maryland, I think we mentioned in the earlier podcast that have been effective in getting better pay, more equitable pay for counselors. Now, again, I think as we mentioned, I think actually, Carol, you mentioned this, you know, this isn't something like, okay, well, next week we're going to start that. No, this takes literally years to do because of the political influences. You know, like who are the secretaries of state and the governors, and is there support to do that And yes or no? And how do you build the case? So building that case of, you know, hey, we're losing people when we look at our salaries compared to rehab counselors in the Veterans Administration, compared to mental health counselors, compared to other comparable professions, let's look at what the data. So, you know, you don't need to be a genius to kind of figure out this job is going to pay $20,000 more for what I think is essentially the same job. And so it's like we've got to take a look at this because the thing is, you know, just kind of throw your hands up and say, well, we can't do anything about that. Well, I'm not sure about that. But I do know this, that to institute any kind of change, we have to have some sort of rationale and data to support why do we absolutely need to do that? And we'll talk about this aspect a little bit later. But part of the data collection also, and this is a tool that we have available but very few states use it, is when we conduct those exit interviews with people that they're leaving. And you ask, well, why are you leaving? I'd be willing to bet based on my understanding of either people I know that have left the agency or what I've seen in the review of the literature. These testimonials, I think are really critical and say over the last three years we've lost 50 counselors. We asked them, Why are you leaving? 85% is because of low salary. That's important data. Okay. And that's just not something that hey, wouldn't it be nice? But I can't think in terms of any kind of real data, anything more important than those kinds of testimonials. But the problem is that most states don't use exit interviews or if they conduct them, frankly, I don't think they do a good job or even if they do a good job the problem is the data doesn't always get communicated back to the state director. So here in Pennsylvania, anybody works for labor, Labor and industry. Well, that's just not VR counselors. That's a whole other group of professionals that get kind of lumped in together. And so those are kind of some important data that we need to start monitoring. We need to build a case we just can't keep kind of poor me, blah, blah, What are the data? And then ultimately how is that impacted? And I think those kinds of things are really important. Carol: I agree 100%. I know as I have talked to different directors across the country, you mentioned Kentucky. Absolutely. Core McNabb talked to her. She's done some things, really big, impactful things with this. Scott Dennis, as we talked about, I know Brett McNeil right now in Florida has a big initiative that's taken several years, started before him, but and he's a newer director in but continued that fight. And I'm hoping fingers crossed that he's able to get that through the legislative session this year to get those increases for his folks. But for our listeners, I know some of you are thinking like, well, it's daunting. Like this is a terrible task. You've got to do all of this work. It's going to take all these years. But if you never start, you're never going to finish. If you never build the case, you never collect the data, you don't go after this. Three years from now, we're going to be talking about the same problem and you've done nothing towards it. And so I just really encourage people like you have to start this is so critical. This is a fundamental issue for your agency that pay piece. You need to work on it. And that's where you have to build your relationships. You got to look at any coalitions that you can engage in. You want to reach out to those other directors that have been successful to find out what they've done. Jane Donellen in Idaho General, she's done some interesting things around this as well. You want to talk to those other people, reach out to your CSAVR colleagues and say like, Hey, how you do that? I know every state is set up differently and you have your own civil service rules in your state. But by and large, doing something like this, what you said, Jim, you get to build the case. And so I don't care what state you're in, you're always going to want to come in with your data. Here it is. And you present it because you may be thinking that HR is like looking out for you. But think about it. HR has had these huge turnovers and staff to they don't know what's going on. You know your story, they don't know it. You're one of a whole bunch of books of business in that state. You've got you. If you're in a labor agency, you've got all these other programs, unemployment insurance, they'll remember that was kind of having problems. You're the one living with it every day. So if you can paint that picture, that helps them because I know there's always a method for doing this within the state. It may be a little daunting, but if you don't start I mean, I'm kind of on my soapbox right now, but if you never start, you're never going to get there. Jim: You're absolutely spot on. And I would agree with that. One of the things I'll ask my students when we talk about problems and problem resolution and those things is the issue of control. And one of the things I'll ask is, what is it? Because there's so many things we can't control, but what is it that we can control? And I think that's a question that you're asking. And then also, too, is the perception because you think, oh, well, we can't. And it's like, well, maybe we can, but the first thing we've got to collect the information to support the case. So related to that kind of issue of control, and I'm going to spoiler alert to your listeners, I'm going to probably say a few things that might be a little bit controversial. No surprise there. But kind of related to that and this is going to be hard, I know, is the question of how are we conceiving of this job. You know, I said earlier that the millennials and Gen Z in particular, they didn't come in to be a rehab counselor to six out of eight hours of the day in front of a computer and data entry that doesn't light it up for them. And so one of the things we know from a number of studies of graduates, they're saying to us, we want opportunities that are going to give us greater client access. So I got into this because I like working with people. You know, I enjoy that interaction. I love that part of the job. And so what some states are doing and a couple come to mind, North Carolina General, Tennessee, they're saying, okay, how can we reduce the administrative data entry task? Is there a way that we can maybe allocate those aspects to maybe someone that you don't necessarily have to have a master's degree to do that? And we know that, Carol, you know this you know, a number of states now are kind of rethinking this baccalaureate position. Maybe there are opportunities at the introductory level, if you will, professional level that require a baccalaureate degree. So the thinking, of course, being if we can assign those tasks to and sometimes states use different titles, sometimes you'll hear the term counselor, aide paraprofessional, which personally I don't like that because I think at the Baccalaureate you're a professional. I think to me it kind of denigrates that. But the point is the intent here is like, okay, can I have someone's going to help me with the case management functions aspect, the documentation that I might now be able to spend more time with clients. The other thing too, that we learned I found this was interesting New Hampshire developed kind of a pilot project with I think this is I think was a University of Wisconsin Stout. I believe if it's wrong, my apologies to the other university who did, but I think it was with Stout in helping them in the decision making process of eligibility determinations. So they would outsource this to UW stout personnel who then review the case. Now, they didn't make the I want to be clear on this. They didn't make the determination. They made maybe a recommendation for that. The counselor makes the final determination, but was interesting. I believe that by doing that, New Hampshire was saying that saved about 30% of time that a counselor might have to allocate for that, that now that if we outsource that, that allowed them to have greater contact. So that's another thing. Carol: Yeah. So it's funny you bring that up, Jim. So I'm actually doing a podcast in August...
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VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Where did all the staff go? Addressing your Recruitment Woes- A Conversation with Dr. Jim Herbert -Penn State.
06/09/2023
VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Where did all the staff go? Addressing your Recruitment Woes- A Conversation with Dr. Jim Herbert -Penn State.
Dr. Jim Herbert, Professor of Counselor Education and Rehabilitation and Human Services at Penn State, joins us in the studio today. In this first part of a two-part series, Jim discusses the recruitment challenges identified in his study- Recruitment and Retention of State Vocational Rehabilitation Counselors: A Mixed Methods Analysis. Please listen in as Carol and Jim unpack this study and discuss the four significant challenges and possible solutions you can apply to your situation. Stay tuned as the focus shifts to the retention side of the study by Dr. Jim Herbert in the next episode of Manager Minute. Music} Speaker1: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow. Carol: Well, welcome to the Manager Minute Doctor Jim Herbert, Professor of Counselor, Education and Rehabilitation and Human Services at Penn State, is joining me in the studio today to discuss his recently released study, Recruitment and Retention of State Vocational Rehabilitation Counselors, A Mixed Methods Analysis. I am so happy to have you here today. How are things going in Pennsylvania? Jim: Well, first off, I'm happy to be had and things are going very well in Pennsylvania. It's a beautiful summer day and the nice thing is that many academician might appreciate it. While we love students, summer session, they're not here, which means you can get parking spaces downtown, lots of restaurants. You don't have to wait a long time to get in. So it's a good time and good place to be in State College, Pennsylvania. Carol: Oh, that's awesome. Say, are you getting any of that wildfire smoke from Canada? Jim: You know, it's funny you say that because we just got an alert that indicated like over the next couple of days, Yeah, it's going to be coming this way. Carol: Yeah, we definitely got hit with it the last two days. And I saw it moving off to the East Coast, looked like the apocalypse here. It was very, very weird. So to set the stage for our listeners, I first met you through the CSVAR Operations and Personnel Committee, and I used to co-chair the old version of that committee. It was called The old HRD with Cynthia Speight, and I continued to participate in it when I entered the TA world. And so back in the day, Cynthia and I were super interested in recruitment, retention issues of counselors. And I'm talking like, this is probably like eight years ago now. And we had done several surveys with state agencies to kind of gauge where they were at with getting new counselors. And we kept seeing this shrinkage of people entering the field and the reduction in universities offering a master's in rehab counseling. And then you came to that committee to collaborate on a study you were doing that was partly supported by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living and Rehab Research or NIDILRR, Jim: right. Carol: And so in the executive summary, you noted that there had been a consistent shortage of qualified rehab counselors employed by the state federal VR program for actually several decades. I mean, we're kind of thinking this is a new deal. And it's like this has been going on for quite some time and the Covid 19 pandemic really exacerbated the shortage. And you were also looking at the funding RSA provided to graduate programs that encouraged individuals to work and to be in VR. And you wanted to see like what happened after that two year kind of payback phase. And really, I found that interesting, that the funding had been provided for 65 years, but there had been no formal study about the scholars continuing their employment with VR after that period of time. So your study primarily examined recruitment, retention, concerns of the state vocational rehab agencies, and you identified strategies to address those. And in addition, you looked to see if there was a mechanism to track that long term employment outcome of the former RSA scholars working for the state VR program. So we're going to do this in two parts because you have a lot of stuff you did, and I think our listeners will kill us if we're going to do a two hour podcast. So we're not everybody just stay buckled in. We're going to tackle in two parts. And Jim and I are going to talk today about the retention side of the project. And then next month we are going to talk about the recruitment part of this. So, all right, enough background. Let's dig in. So, Jim, can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself, like how long you've been in academia? How did you get there? Jim: How did I get here? Well, I've been an Academician here at Penn State for 37 years. And where did the time go in terms of kind of how I got here? Probably like a lot of your audience, when you think about people that work in the rehab field, a lot of times you get in the rehab field because they have either personal experience with disability or a family member. And that's exactly what happened to me. I had a brother who had Down syndrome, and so I got interested and did volunteer work on high school and in college. And I loved working with people with developmental disabilities. That's how I got interested in rehab. And then during my, you know, college, I knew I wanted to work with people. But a lot of times, you know, when we teach career development, we kind of make it sound like it's this very logical process that you, you know, pluses and minuses and I going to do this. And yet we fail to acknowledge there's a lot of things by fate that impact on your career choice. You just happen to be in this office who you just happened to say something who happened to know somebody else who happened to have this job. So when I look back at my own career, one of the things I tell my students is that, yeah, you can plan and you want to be in a position to have opportunities. To come, but there's a lot of things you can't control and there's a lot of things that just sort of happen, if you will. Some might say by divine providence. I don't know if that's the case. But anyway, there's a lot of things that you can't plan. So in my own career, how I got that was sort of a combination of just fate happen to be in this place at this time. And then obviously preparation in terms of formal education and experience. But yeah, it's gone by fast. Carol: I love that when you said 37 years, we probably have some listeners out there going, I'm not even 37 years old right now. And I was thinking this year I just had my 37th anniversary. And so you and I have been around for a little bit more than a minute. I think that's cool. But I love that that you said by fate, I think a lot of us have fallen into our career trajectory truly by fate in whatever kind of circumstance. Like you said, you came into it at the time. So what went into approaching this study and kind of how long have you been at this? Jim: Yeah, it's funny. As far as doing this study, how I kind of got interested in it was I mean, I've been a project director for many RSA training grants throughout that time period. There's a lot of investment that you make and help students become rehab counselors and Penn State I think like many universities, we have a strong commitment to the state VR program. You know, I've always said that I feel that State VR people, you should have the best trained people to address the difficult needs and complex needs of people with disabilities have. So there's a lot of investment that's made. And then also, as you know, after they graduate and they get supported through RSA traineeship, they'll typically work for every one year of support, two years of full time employment. So if they work for a state agency, there's a lot of investment the agency makes. You'll often hear it takes 2 to 3 years before you just kind of feel like, I know this job. So when you combine that, you see the amount of financial investment and professional investment that educators and practitioners make. And so over the years when I've had a chance to meet with a number of our former alumni and what are you doing? And one of the things I notice is some of them would be working for a state agency, and then after a couple of years, they do their two year payback and said, I'm out of here. It's like, man, you know, what's going on? What's happening here? What are we doing? And what I came to learn talking with other educators across the country is it's not something I think, wow, is this something just unique to us? Maybe we're doing something wrong here. Maybe we need to do a better job, which of course, we could always do. But what I learned anecdotally was that, no, this seems to be kind of a nationwide problem. So you had that on top of I was interested. So what research has been done to look at the long term effectiveness of the RSA training program? And what I learned was I could not find any study throughout that whole history. I thought that was kind of interesting because I know we followed in the first two years, but after the payback period, that's it. So that started a pilot project that I had done. So I was just interested what happened with the people that came through Penn State, received the RSA Scholarship and worked. And what I learned from that pilot study, even though the data was a small sample size, I learned when we look at the percentage of people who are at the agency versus those that worked at Non State VR, I learned that it was significantly higher. The rate of people who are intending to leave the state VR. So that kind of rang some bells for me. And from there, with that pilot data, we then decided to undertake this three year study to investigate what's going on and more maybe not necessarily more importantly, but just as importantly, what can we do about it? So we are just finishing our second year of data and today and next month, we'll talk about some of the results of what are some of the things that we found from that study. So that's really kind of how this whole thing emerged. Carol: I really love that you tackled this because that was so interesting to me, especially when you were looking at 65 years of this program. But there was nothing done like there had been no study of what happened to the people. I'm sure as you were talking to directors and I used to be a director, you know, anecdotally we could see and tell you, like we knew in Minnesota, I felt like we were the training grounds for the VA. And so, you know, staff would come in, they would do an internship with us, come on board, Yay, you know, and all of that. And then the next thing you know, there's skedaddled over to the VA because they could make like 20,000 more a year starting. It was crazy. So it's like, how do we combat that? And we'll get to some of that. You had definitely some ideas for folks on how to do it, but I was really super pleased to see what you had undertaken there. So let's talk about the recruitment challenges that you identified in the study. What are the top challenges that VR is facing? Jim: Right now, the first thing I'm going to tell you, I'm sure your listeners are going to go, duh. I mean, the first big challenge is we don't have enough applicants. We don't have enough people applying for the jobs. And there's a lot of reasons for that. And I'd like to unpack maybe just a few of them. But one of the big things that states are constantly saying is years past, maybe we'd have a job opening and we might have 15-20 applicants today. We might be lucky if we can get a couple and in some cases we get none. So the big problem is we don't have a sufficient number of qualified job applicants. That's, you know, the big thing. So it's like people don't know about us. People don't know how to kind of how's this process work? To varying degrees, I think educators do kind of a mixed job on how do we market this. So why would you want to become a state VR counselor? You know, if you ask college students who want to be counselors, social workers, psychologists, and say, hey, there's this thing called a state counselor, it's like, what? What is that? I don't know. What do they do? That's a big, big problem. Another big, big problem that we have is look at the bureaucracy. You and I, we've had a history of and I'm still working in the bureaucracy here at Penn State as much as I love it. But the big thing is in that bureaucracy, the time it takes to recruit somebody, then you have to kind of review all the applicants. You have all the policies and procedures and steps and levels of people that need to review and sign off on this. Well, that process typically takes 2 to 3 months. And so you're thinking like, okay, for states that are looking and I know that regulations are changing, hiring more baccalaureate people, but especially for master's level credentialed persons, they don't have time to kind of wait two, three months to hear back from a job. If you think back to like when you know, way back in the Stone Age, when I'll just say when I graduated, you finish and you were poor and you needed money and I need to get a job and a job fast. So to ask them to wait for 2 or 3 months after they graduate, we're losing. We're losing a lot of qualified people. We need to do something about how do we reduce that time that's a little bit more manageable and a little bit more reasonable. Carol: I hear about that from directors all the time, that hiring practices. In fact, we're doing a little bit of a pilot on recruitment retention within our VRTAC for quality management. And so you've been aware I've been working with John Connolly and Ron Vessel, John Walsh, Missy Deal and Crystal Gary on our team where we've been talking about this. We've been also coming to the Operation Personnel Committee. But one of the states we're working with, you know, it's taking them 7 or 8 months to be able to make the offer. So they literally interviewed people. And then by the time HR worked through their processes, it was eight months later. And then you're going to offer to somebody and they're like, we thought this was done because we haven't heard from you. Gosh, you're going on a year, for Pete's sakes. People aren't hanging out. And if they are hanging out, there's probably a reason they're hanging out and somebody else didn't pick them up. Jim: You're absolutely right. Typically with state directors who we spoke with and we spoke to about 20 in the first part of this study, usually it was about 3 or 4 months. So, boy, if it's 7 to 8 months, oh, my lord, that's really, really bad. So on top of that, another big problem and this is where I think educators need to do a better job. A lot of applicants really don't understand what is it that a state VR counselor does? This might be a little controversial to say, but I think one of the things when we kind of went through the new accreditation process from CORE to CACREP and all and the counselor identity, now this is just my personal opinion. I'm not saying it represents, you know, any other constituent group. But in my opinion, I think what we've lost in that transition is we've lost a bit that the importance of career development, of job placement. We've lost, you know, kind of career counseling. And so I think students really don't understand that while I want to work in private practice, so they have this kind of idealized expectation, like, you know, I just open up my shop or I work out of my house and people just be coming and it'll be great. I'll provide good services, I'll make a good income. It doesn't work that way. It takes time to kind of do all that. And then my wife is a therapist had been doing this for 40 years. Even when you do that again, you have some idea of how you think it's going to work, and they don't really understand, like, Hey, well, what are some of the downsides of kind of private practice? And so a state view job has lots of benefits, I think, that make attractive. And one of the things I say to my students is where should I start? For me, working as a state counselor is a fantastic way to kind of get on the ground floor because you learn different systems, different agencies. You understand the whole network, and you'll also get connected in the community so you understand, you know, other providers and kind of what they do. That takes time. I think that's another problem because people have some understanding and we'll talk about the paperwork and all that. And there are definitely downsides, but there's a lot of upsides. The other big thing, no surprise, surprise, money. We don't pay them enough. We can talk about later on this podcast or the next about what certain states are doing and all. But the big problem is and you just alluded, not alluded, you actually stated that years ago, you take like the VA offer is just one example and it's like, okay, the credentials are the same. So why would I want to work at this place? It's going to pay me $20,000 less to do basically kind of very similar kinds of jobs. And so while some states have been successful in getting higher compensation, others have not. And we'll talk more about this probably in the next podcast because I do have some ideas about what you can do to address the compensation issue. So when you look at those four reasons, the fact that we don't have enough people, the fact that it takes time to go through all the recruitment that applicants, they don't really have an understanding of what's this job about? And the money, that's a deadly combination. And so we need to now think about, well, what are things that we could do to kind of make this more attractive to recruit them? Carol: I know when we were talking money, so I did a podcast. It was in April with Scott Dennis from Maryland. For our listeners, if you didn't catch that episode, definitely go back and listen, because he was successful in getting a significant increase for his counselors and the supervisors and the regional administrators because he's in this unique position where he's surrounded by like DC and all these other states. So he goes, Gosh, we're the training ground for RSA. Like they're stealing all my people. And folks were making significantly more well by him. And this wasn't overnight. Like everybody needs to know like any of these solutions that we're going to talk about, like it takes time. Literally. They've been working on this for several years. And finally, we're able to get it through. It almost immediately stopped the bleeding because he said he was every week getting everybody was reporting up like all these resignations. And it stopped and they actually started getting people back in that used to work for him, came back and said, hey, we love that job, but now you're paying a decent wage. I will come back. I know it struck me in the study, when you go the range of pay was from like 16,000. When you're talking about like an intern, you know, and it might be like the aid type of thing up to 101,000 and you go, that is a big spread. And there's a whole lot of states talking about, you know, those master's level counselors coming out and they're making $36,000. That's not going to cut it like that is not going to cut it. So I am definitely excited as we kind of get into talking about some of the other strategies folks could use. Now, I know you called out directly that VR agencies do not have an overall strategy to develop a comprehensive recruitment plan. And recruitment really is a reactive process. When somebody leaves the agency and I know we're going to chat about retention next month, so let's talk about some strategies that might help folks on the recruitment front. Jim: Yeah, that's right. So the first thing is, okay, when you look at traditionally like how does a state VR...
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VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: How to Survive a Move in VR Fiscal Support Services and Come Up with a Solution that Works for Everyone- Arizona VR
05/08/2023
VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: How to Survive a Move in VR Fiscal Support Services and Come Up with a Solution that Works for Everyone- Arizona VR
Kristen Mackey, Administrator of Arizona Department of Economic Security- Rehabilitation Services Administration; Jacy Wilmes, Managing Analyst Financial Services Administrative Team supporting the Division of Employment and Rehabilitation Services, and Morgan Harmon, Senior Financial Analyst, for the Finance and Business Operations Administration, joined Carol Pankow in the VRTAC-QM Studio. Kristen, Jacy, and Morgan explain how they have navigated and managed the fiscal support services consolidation at Arizona VR. Learn about the solutions and lessons learned that make Arizona's synergistic approach work for everyone. VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: How to Survive a Move in VR support services and Come Up with a Solution that Works for Everyone- Arizona VR Music} Speaker1: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow. Carol: Welcome to the Manager Minute. Kristen Mackey, Administrator Arizona Department of Economic Security- Rehabilitation Services Administration, Jacy Wilmes Managing Analyst Financial Services Administrative Team supporting the Division of Employment and rehabilitation services, and Morgan Harmon, Senior Financial Analyst, for the Finance and Business Operations administration are joining me in the studio today. Holy cow, I can barely say all of that, big crowd. So thanks for being here. Kristen, how are things going in Arizona? Kristen: It's going well. We are settling into a routine of hybrid services and just getting to be really nice time of year here in Arizona. The weather's beautiful. Carol: Well, you go, girl. I wish it would have been nice when we were there in January. It was not. It was raining. I'm like, What happened?. And Jacy, how are you doing? Jacy: I'm doing great. Have a baby on the way right in the middle of July. So, you know, perfect time to have a baby in Arizona when it's 120 degree weather. Carol: Oh, wow. Well, congrats on that. That's pretty cool. And Morgan, I got to see you out at CSAVR. How are things going? Morgan: Yeah, it was great being out there. Great seeing everybody. Things are going well from my end. Got some vacations planned that I'm really looking forward to. Carol: Excellent. Excellent. Well, thanks for being here today, guys. Really appreciate it. Kristen, you were actually on my very first podcast back in May of 2021, talking about how VR is going to look post-pandemic. That cracks me up because it seems like a decade ago and so much has changed since then. For our listeners, our fiscal team at the VRTAC-QM have been working with Arizona combined under an intensive agreement, and we've gotten to know Kristen and her team so much better and are also working with both the DSA fiscal staff and the Division Administration fiscal staff. It is a really complicated setup, but we're going to get to that in a minute. So coming off the recent CSAVR conference, I thought it was really fitting to talk about how to survive a move in support services and come up with a solution that works for everyone. And I was talking with so many different VR agencies and folks are struggling with this movement of support services. I'm talking about, you know, moving your fiscal team, your HR, your IT from under the VR purview into more of a shared services model or up at the DSA level or sometimes even a move where it's going to a statewide entity. Carol: And that is really common with IT. Now, you can't stop the DSA from consolidating services since it's happening everywhere. So let's figure out how we can work through this to make it work for VR. So when we were on site with Kristen back in January, we saw how this consolidation was working firsthand and we got to meet some pretty terrific people that are very committed to learning and understanding the VR nuanced pieces of the work. And so I wanted to break this story of what happened in Arizona. And I think you all can be of help to some other states. Now, I need to make one more disclaimer. No state has a perfect system and everybody struggles still, but they have really taken a great approach in Arizona to get this into a workable situation for all. So let's dig in. So Kristen, kick us off with a little information about Arizona VR. Like how many staff do you have, How many customers and how long have you been with the agency? Kristen: Thanks, Carol. Arizona is a combined VR unit, and we have about 326 staff members right now that are just in the VR world. And then we have our support services that also help manage the madness as we say. We serve just under 11,000 clients right now. Our numbers are slowly starting to trickle back up, but we're still about 30% less than we were prior to the pandemic. I have been with the agency for 15 years. I started as a brand newbie transition counselor and had worked my way up and was in the policy unit when WIOA came into fruition. So that was a great place to be at that time and then moved on into the administrator role a couple years after that. Carol: Well, it positions you very well being in that role with WIOA coming into play for sure. So Jacy, why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about your background and current role? Jacy: Yeah, I graduated from Iowa State with a degree in finance back in May 2020, right when the pandemic hit is when I graduated. This was my very first job out of college, and I started off and I was actually supposed to be the WIOA and Employment Administration analyst, but we had someone leave and I got swung into the RSA role. There was a lot of learning. So I was a financial analyst fresh out of college, really just got thrown into this position a ton of learning for about a year and two months on that program. Got it in a pretty decent spot and in the Financial Services Administration world and then got switched over to the unemployment insurance program. So I became a senior financial analyst over there. I worked on that program for about 9 to 10 months and think for everyone in RSA, just be glad you're not in UI. So yeah, and then I took over the management analyst position on the team, which is kind of just the workflow manager for the team. So we have a supervisor who's a senior managing analyst and then I'm right under him, so I just manage all the workload on the team. I review all the Fed reports. I review everyone's documents. I kind of get the whole team in the same groove with our actual workload. Carol: I like it. I like that you used groove. You can tell you're all in a good groove for sure. Appreciate that. How about Morgan, Over to you. The same question. Morgan: I graduated from ASU, got my degree in economics, and right after graduating I went the personal finance route where I started off as a broker for Charles Schwab, got my series licenses, talked with clients, place trades all day. I enjoyed it. But I had a friend who worked for the state's Department of Economic Security, actually over UI who would reach out to me like every few months is like, Hey, you should come work with me. And so about a year and a half ago, I took the leap. I left my job with Charles Schwab and came to work on public finance for the government. And I really haven't looked back since. I've really enjoyed my time here. I enjoy the people that I've been working with currently on a financial planning and analysis team with a great group of people. But being placed over RSA has definitely come with its challenges. It feels like the previous analysts in my role have all found pieces of a puzzle that they've been putting together and then when they leave, it's like they move that puzzle and things are still somewhat in place, but other pieces have moved and then it's just trying to put it all together. And I've enjoyed that challenge. I've enjoyed learning the program. And yeah, we've got a great group of people here. Carol: Yeah, very cool. We saw that when we were down in January. That's why I just thought, I've got to talk to this group because you guys really have a unique setup and I think it will be important for other people to hear about that. So, Kristen, why don't you talk to us about the overall structure of the organization, like the DSA you live under, what services are under the big DSA and kind of that how this all lines up? Kristen: Yeah, The Department of Economic Security is one of the largest agencies in state government. We serve more than 2 million clients every year, more than 40 programs to address all of the social and economic needs of those that we serve. DES is employees. We really have more than 8000 employees across the state. So we're a ginormous state agency. Seven program divisions such as adult Protective services, child Support services, developmental disabilities, and then our division, which is employment and rehab services, all of the DOL programs are also within our division. And so we work closely with the WOTC and UI and our local workforce development areas. All of that is under our division. So we are one of the largest divisions within the department as well. Then there's six operational divisions that help keep the lights on and everything that happens to, you know, keep the programs moving. Yeah, as Sarah would say, it's a big dot deal. Carol: It is a big dot deal. That is a big group. And as Jesse said, we can all be happy we're not in UI. Kristen: So yeah, we see that firsthand every day being part of our division, the UI madness. Carol: Oh yeah, absolutely. So, Kristen, when did the change occur for you with this movement of the fiscal team from under your direct purview? Kind of describe what happened at that time. Kristen: Yeah. You know, the department had been doing some of the shifts and kind of had you had talked about, you know, IT training. What are those services that support the divisions but kind of do the same thing for all of the divisions and all of the programs. And so about 5 or 6 years ago, we had the shift in contracts, training, fiscal, policy. All of those were moved to a shared services model. And under that shared services, you may have a single administrator or a single point of contact for the entire division. And as you just heard, our division is really large and very different in the services that we provide. And so we found that it's not always super helpful to have one person that is spread across all of those different programs. So previous to that, we had the fiscal staff reported directly to the RSA administrator and that fiscal person had a team of individuals under them. We had very tenured staff in those positions. We had people that retired from their positions. And so the work then became, you know, it was a unit. They all learned from each other. They had been through monitoring. They had known all the fiscal people and federal RSA. They had done all of the work. And so I think we're not immune to what business is now, right? People retire, new people come in, people leave, people shuffle. And we found that we just had staff that didn't have as much knowledge of our RSA programs and didn't know the technical side of the work either. Carol: Gotcha. So this new structure, it's kind of a little confusing still to me. A little bit. If we could like go through what does this exactly look like? And Kristen, maybe you talk from the highest level and then I'm going to go to you because you have like the next chunk and then Morgan can talk about like, how does this all fit for the fiscal? Kristen: Yeah, it is complicated. The department has the operational division, which is the division of finance operations or financial operations. That's where Jacy is housed. So they do kind of the big bucket activities under the grants management portion of the work. And then within our division we have the Finance and Business Operations Administration. So that is where Morgan and team are housed. And Morgan and Jacy, they work very closely together to manage the aspects of the work. And then, you know, I'm a pest and throw myself in there every once in a while, more often than they probably wish to understand, you know, how do we manage the work and what needs to get done and when. Carol: That sounds good. So. Jacy, you pick it up from where Kristen kind of talked about it, Like, how does this flow between you and Morgan? Jacy: Yeah, if I use acronyms, Financial Services Administration, we call FSA. That's where I'm housed. So an FSA, we kind of like Kristen was saying, we manage the big buckets of things. We do the big Fed reports, we do all of the federal drawdowns, we manage the payment systems, we manage the budgets in our accounting system. So when we get new award letters, Kristen sends them over to us. We load them in, match everything up to what the feds have sent us. We reconcile the revenue we receive to make sure that we're actually spending it down. We do a lot of analysis that are kind of more higher level and the way we work with Morgan and team, I would say they're more in the weeds of things. They see a lot of the actual invoices where we just see an expenditure into a category. So we'll see personal services, employee related expenditures, while they may see the actual documentation for that cost. So the way we work with Morgan is we just really rely on their knowledge of the program itself because like Kristen said, in division of financial operations were moved around a lot. So I'm the managing analyst on the team. I'm over our employment administration. I dabble in a little bit of childcare so we don't have a vast knowledge of each and every program. We try to become a subject matter expert in each one. When I came on, I was actually a subject matter expert for FSA in RSA because that was the one I spent the most time on. And then I'm also a subject matter expert on UI. I don't have the most expertise in the other areas and that's where other people come into play and that's where we utilize them. It's an interesting setup. Whenever we do an analysis specifically for our spending down our match. As everyone knows, spending down match is very complicated with RSA just having to meet a 15% pre-ets and also 21% state match. We work with Morgan and team to kind of utilize the client system they use and also our accounting system to come up with, okay, how much have we actually spent, what are we authorized? And then also just utilizing them for any questions we have when we see expenditures or anything on the federal report that just looks a little off from what we think we should be reporting. Carol: Gotcha. So I was thinking and you just graduated from school in 2020 and look at all the buckets that you are over or impacting. That is a lot. Good for you. Good for you. Jacy: Thank you. Carol: So, Morgan, tell us about like, okay, now you're the weed guy, so you're the weeds. How does this I shouldn't have said it that way. So sorry. How does that all work? How does that work? Being the weed guy. Morgan: It's fun. I say that with air quotes. Jacy explained it really well. Kind of our relationship there. What I would say a lot of my job is working with the programs like the various nuances that each program has, how they work with clients. We take, like the Transition School to Work program, where the ones that approve the budgets, we send out those invoices, we make sure that we're collecting that money and if necessary, we'll do an expenditure correction and a pretest, which would then send a Jacyso that he manages that at the grant level. I'm looking at it all on the program level. So my main deliverable that I provide each month is a budget packet, looking at each individual program that all feeds into like the Section 110 grant or independent living. We look at each of those programs, how they're performing, how they can improve and then go from there. Carol: Yeah, I have to say, your budget packet was really impressive because you guys had showed us the reporting that you do and I'm like, Oh wow. I had told Kristen, I'm like, You are actually very fortunate that you have these fine gentlemen who really get at a lot of great information about what is exactly happening with the financial position of the program. Kristen: Yeah, I'll give credit to Morgan, too. I mean, like I said, we had tenured staff and, you know, I think we all thought we were doing it just right. And as we dig in, we learned that maybe we weren't just doing it just right over the years. Carol: Right. Kristen: And so just having that fresh look into what is actually happening and are we doing it the right way. Morgan and Jacy and the team have done a really great job at reevaluating our processes and making sure that we're heading in the right direction. Carol: Well, and since you brought that up, Kristen, you would let us know there was quite a bit of turnover, and that has seemed to now stabilize. Like that core group that is around now seems good. And you've all been around for more than six months, which is really, really nice. So Kristen, how do you keep that momentum and knowledge alive with this turnover that's been happening? Kristen: We think we're still working on it, right? Recognizing and know that the teams have folder structures in the background that we look for access to. But all of the reports that. Morgan. And are working on. And I'm amazed at the work they do in their Excel spreadsheets and books in the macros and the databases and everything. I don't understand all of that. And so you see these documents are housed in folders and it's really up to them to try to figure out like, what is this? You know, they can push a button and it'll pull things forward. But is that really the right information? So I'm really fortunate that both of the teams, I think, are working towards memorializing what is it that we're doing and how does it work and what is the actual behind the scenes work that, you know, what are we pulling into these documents? It's not just relying on a preformatted sheet and having it just pull what it's always pulled. So just trying to just be aware and think. My role is I poke quite a bit. Is this right? Do we know what that's pulling? Can we identify what that means? So just allowing some space for additional questioning versus just assuming that what's been there and always there is right. Because think we love the people that worked with us before and nothing against them, but we need to make sure that we're doing it the right way at this point in time. Carol: Yeah. And love it, Kristen, that your team is always really willing to say don't understand what this report means. I love that. I think it was Jacy and Morgan were handing you some stuff and we were all in a meeting and you're like, Okay, what does this mean? Can you guys walk me through this? And I love that because then Morgan and Jacy have a really nice way, a good style of talking in plain language to us non-accountant kind of people or whatever, and could explain the process really well. It was cool. Jacy: Yeah. So I think there's a few things I could add to that just because, like Kristen said, there's a lot of files we use. So I think one thing that we've really been working on as an agency in general is just standard operating procedure. When we create a file, we also create the steps to update the file. What we're looking for in the file. When I came on, it was my third month was when the RSA17 dropped. That's when it became a brand new report. So I had to create the entire template in Excel. I had to create all the backup documentation that goes into that report. And it was very confusing. And I think...
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VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: See how persistence pays off for employee pay increases - Scott Dennis Maryland Combined
04/03/2023
VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: See how persistence pays off for employee pay increases - Scott Dennis Maryland Combined
Scott Dennis, Assistant Superintendent of the Maryland Division of Rehabilitative Services (DORS), joins Carol Pankow in the VRTAC-QM Studio and tells us about how Maryland DORS increased recruitment and decreased resignations by raising salaries to compete in the regional job market. Learn how they opened the door and proved the case. Music} Speaker1: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow. Carol: Well, welcome to the Manager Minute. Scott Dennis, assistant superintendent of the Maryland Division of Rehabilitative Services or DORS, is joining me in the studio today. So thanks for joining me. How are things going in Maryland, Scott. Scott: Things are going well, Carol. I appreciate the opportunity to join today's podcast. Excellent. Carol: So a little background for our listeners. I did have some familiarity with Maryland DORS. I had worked with Sue Page. She was the former director and a national level. We were on the executive committee together and Sue and I also did a couple panel presentations and that was super fun. And I was so disappointed, you know, when she had retired in '18, I had just worked with her. And then like the next week she goes, I'm retiring. She had sent me a note and I knew you had been her deputy and I think you were named right in 2019 to replace her, was that right? Scott: Yeah. I came into this position an acting role in 2018. Sue left in June of 2018 and I was named, the Acting. Was permanently placed into the position in January of 2019. Carol: Gotcha. Scott: Almost five years now. Carol: Nice. Well, it was really fun because early in '19 you and I, we were working on that RSA workgroup around Rethinking Performance. So I liked getting to know you and realizing, Oh, you're the fiscal guy too. You were the fiscal guy for the agency. So it's been fun to have that kind of a little lens into your agency. So I know you've had some unique challenges that we're going to get into later. And I understand that there had been some previous runs at trying to get employee wages increased, which, you know, had failed. So this was all prior to you being at the helm. And the state of the recruitment and retention issue nationally has been front and center for every VR agency, I think. And you were able to more recently secure a rather significant employee pay increase. So I am sure our listeners are on the edge of their seats and are anxious to hear, How did you make that happen? So let's dig in. So Scott, can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself, like how long you've been with DORS and how have you got to the position you hold today? What's kind of the path you took? Scott: Well, sure. I kind of happened into VR. I was working in a private sector in retail and was looking to do something different than that. And as anybody who's ever worked in retail, there's a lot of long hours that are very odd and so forth. So I was looking to do something different and happened to come across an advertisement in the paper for a director for this program called the Business Enterprise Program for the Blind. Carol: Oh, wow. Scott: It kind of struck me. And so I said, Well, I've got a retail background, I've got a business background, let me get my shot at it. And so I put in my application and went through the interview process. And about four months later in 1990, I became the director of the Maryland Business Enterprise Program for the Blind, which was kind of unique because my background was not in the area of either VR or in blindness, but I did bring that business background, which is what the agency at the time was looking for. It was a great experience. The business enterprise programs for the blind bring their own unique challenges and so forth, and trying to operate a business environment inside of a state government. And you've got some real challenges in trying to do stuff fast and an organization is trying to slow you down. But it was a great experience. I was the director for BEP for six years and then our state director, who was Bob Burns at the time, said, I need some help over at DDS. And I went, What's a DDS? Because my focus had been strictly on BEP. And so he sent me over to the Disability Determination Services as the assistant director over there, and I oversaw sort of the administrative side of the DDS and did a number of activities over there. We moved into a much larger facility. We also at that time moved off a state legacy system onto *Levi. And for any of those who have been around a long time and have a program, you understand how far back that went. After about five years of DDS, moved over, back over here to the side of the shop and became the director of business services, which included all the administrative functions of the agency and sort of the financial piece of it. And so I was that until 2018 when I became the assistant state superintendent. Carol: Very cool. I had no clue. Your days started with BEP. That is amazing. Good for you. You have a definitely a great broad history there. Paint a picture for our listeners about DORS and what agency you live under. What's your designated state agency and how many staff do you have in VR? And you already said you had DDS, but is that service under your purview as well? Scott: Yeah, we're housed within the Maryland State Department of Education. We're probably one of the first big divisions of the Maryland State Department of. We were created in 1929 and we at that time the division had two employees and a budget of $15,000. And the only reason I know any of this is because we've got the enacting legislation sitting out in the hall. We had two employees and $15,000 worth of state appropriation at the time. And of the two employees, one was the director of the agency and the other one was his secretary. He was also the counselor at the time as well. So obviously but we've been here ever since. The Division of Rehabilitation Services is comprised of two main programs that we operate are the VR program, obviously, as well as the program. In total, we've got 648 employees in total, of which 416 of them reside in the VR program and the remaining 232 reside in the DDS program. Within that VR program operates an Office of Field Services, which is very much operated the way the general agencies operate and then we have an Office of Blindness and Vision Services, which operate very much as a blind agency. And so we have a director of each one of those offices. They have their own budget and own staff and so forth. Then we also operate our Workforce and Technology center, which does a lot of our training and so forth, as well as a number of community based services out in the field and so forth. So yeah. Carol: Yeah, you have a large operation. Holy cow. I didn't realize all of that. That's a bunch. Carol: So let's talk about your unique position as far as the state. You border other states, as does every state. You know, people probably think duh, but there's something special about where your state is positioned in this country, because I always hear people say that you're the training ground for people that move to RSA. Can you talk about like what that geographical situation has played for you as far as your staff? Scott: Yeah, and appreciate that. It does provide a unique situation for us. We border Delaware, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia as well as D.C. We do have some challenges, especially when we're competing with the federal government. And so because of the federal agencies that are housed here, it has become a real challenge because obviously the states don't pay as much as the federal government does, in particular around the Washington, D.C. area. The salaries are much higher than what we as an agency was able to offer. I mean, in some cases we'd have staff leave and they would nearly double their salaries as a result of that. In some cases, you just can't blame them. It has been a challenge having some of that federal government around, you know, as especially the presence of it, you know, large presence and so forth. Carol: So we all know about this great resignation, you know, that's been talked about in the news. VRs experienced that itself. So how has that impacted what was happening in your agency? What were you facing for vacancy? Scott: We were facing a high level of resignation. It was almost I hate coming in in the morning and turning on my computer and opening my email to see how many people resigned that particular day or week. And so we got hit pretty hard. We had about 40 counselors and supervisors, so it was about 30% of our workforce. We had vacancies in and that's on the VR side, on the side. You know, for those agencies that operate that, we had 59 vacancies and our examiners, which was about 45% of that. And, you know, the big culprit was they were going elsewhere, both private and public, to organizations that were paying them substantially more money than what we could afford, at least at the time. It hit us bad. Carol: Well, I know your number's up there. I'd heard from some other directors talking about you like a 60% turnover in counselors and all these crazy numbers. It's hard to imagine how the work is able to get done. So obviously, you've got this geographic situation, you've got the great resignation going on, and you decided to embark on a journey where you wanted to get these wages increased. Can you tell us more about what went into that? Scott: It was more than just me. I mean, it was a total agency effort. And I'm talking about from the top. In 2021, we got a new state superintendent who was from Texas. And so he was obviously very new, very young and high energy. And so being one of the large divisions and he wanted to have a one on one with me. And so we sat down and we talked. And what he wanted to know what DORS was to begin with and what VR was because he'd always been in education and so forth. And so we, you know, we talked and his first question, you know, real serious question was, what's your biggest challenge? I said, I can't hire, I can't retain because our salaries are so low. And I gave him an example. I said, we've had a recruitment out for three weeks now and we've got one person who is applying and they don't even meet the qualifications down in Montgomery County and Prince George's County, which are two largest counties in the state as far as population, but they're also the two counties that encircle Washington, D.C. And so the obviously the wages down there are extremely high because of the federal government. And so getting any staff at the wages that we were paying was next to impossible. We couldn't recruit, period. That was just the part of the problem. And so, you know, after I told him what the wages were, he even coming from the south out of Texas, even by his standards, the wages were low. So he put together, you know, he tasked the senior management, not only of the Maryland State Department of Education, but also of DORS to start working on a salary adjustment. Obviously, with something like this, it takes all hands on deck because it's just not one person who's doing all the work and guiding this. And so he tasked us and so my staff started doing feelers out to other states to find out what they're going for. We looked at the federal government and some of the positions that they were hiring for that had sort of equal entry level requirements. We looked at our counties. Some of our counties were paying way more than what we were. And so we took all that into consideration in looking at what is it that we wanted our salaries to look like. The other piece of this that was probably sort of the saving grace for us. Our counselors are in a classification series in this state that's only unique to DORS. It doesn't cross other state agencies or anything. And because of that, our Department of Budget and Management allowed us to do what they call an off cycle adjustment. Typically when they take a look at their salary adjustments and so forth and see whether they need to rescale them, they're looking across all the state agencies. They've got to balance who's got money and who doesn't, money when they start to raise salaries for, you know, let's say, an office secretary. Well, every agency has an office secretary. So they've got to have to balance this all out. When they say, okay, we're going to raise the office secretary's levels, well, they only had to look at us. They didn't have to compare us to anybody else, which made it a lot easier. And because a lot of our salaries, the way the state funds us, they put most of our state match dollars into our case services budgets. And so we've got just a small amount that actually goes towards salary. And so when we kind of pulled this together and say, okay, where can we go with this? We said, Hey, for a little bit of investment from the state side, we've got more than enough appropriation and federal funding over here. We can support this without any problem. So the meeting started in September. We kind of got going in earnest just after the Christmas holidays. We spent basically from October through December polling just gathering information. And then in from about January on, we started writing this up, getting everything put together. And then by late April we had the package ready together and we presented it to our Office of Budget and Management and Director of State personnel, and we suggested a threshold that we thought we could go to. They didn't quite agree with that. So there was some negotiating with the Department of Budget and Management, but we landed on a on a figure that was acceptable that they could live with that wasn't so far off that they were going to have problems with other state agencies as well, once they learned about what we had done. Our superintendent really wanted to push our salaries. He wanted it to be the highest in the nation. Carol: Wow! Scott: And he was pushing very hard to get us there. Didn't land there. Carol: So how far did you get? How high did you get to go? Scott: We got a substantial pay increase for them. We got, depending upon where they started, it was well over 20% pay increase for our counselors and examiners, which really stabilized it. I mean, it kind of gives you an idea, our salaries, starting salaries for what we call our VR counselor ones, which are individuals who come in with just a bachelor's degree, no experience. So we kind of have to build them up. We were starting at like 41,000 between 41 and 42. Our VR 2-counselors are individuals who have come in with a master's degree, no experience or some experience. And they were starting around 44,000 at the time and we were able to get them up. I mean, today our starting salary for counselor one is 57,000 and a couple of months with the new fiscal year will go to 58. Our twos were starting them at 60,000 and they'll go up to 62 in July. And then we have a technical specialist series and these are for individuals who again, have master's degrees, have been here a couple of years. They're starting in the upper 60s and low 70s now. Carol: Yeah, good for you. That's pretty amazing. So were there other positions included? So it's not like your examiners or counselors. Were there any other types of positions in the agency include? Scott: Well, we had to go back and do a readjustment because it affected both our counselors and our supervisors because it's a series of counselors, one, twos, technical specialists and supervisors. Then we have our regional supervisors and our regional directors. Well, because of it went up by grades and steps. Basically our regional supervisors were making the same thing as our office supervisors now. And so we had to raise them. When we raised the regional supervisors, they were making the same thing as the regional directors. So we had to raise the regional directors, but it had to happen over the course of time. The first push was the counselor series and so forth, and then we had to come back about a month later and do the rest of the others and so forth. So yeah, it's been sort of a work in progress and we still have some other classifications to take a look at as we kind of move down this path. Carol: I wondered about that. If you had some work left to do. Scott: Yeah, yeah, we do. We have to kind of go back. I mean, our support staff, we've got to go back and we've already started that work already to start looking at that group as well, because again, those classifications go across all state agencies, so we have no authority to raise those salaries. So we have to go back and do what we call a reclass them, which means we have to take a look at their classifications, see whether or not it still fits the job duties and so forth. So that's the only way I can raise that series, those individuals up. I just can't do what we did with the counselors. And in some cases, those salaries and all that are all controlled by the union. Carol: Yes. Scott: And so you've got to kind of have to work through all that stuff. So those positions take a little bit longer to kind of get through. Carol: That makes good sense. So how long did that take you for this? Scott: The first like I said, we started in 20. We started in September when I first met and we started in September. Late October. Carol: Was that 2021? Scott: Right. Carol: Okay. Scott: And then the pay raise went into effect on July 1st of 2022. So it took us nine months to kind of get it all put together and work through all the processes and doing the negotiation and so forth. So yeah. Carol: And it's interesting because you are a union state as well. I came from a union state too, so there's extra things that go into play because I know some other folks have been successful across the country, but they didn't have that added complexity to it. So it was good to see you were able to do this in that environment. Scott: Yeah, well, I mean, one of the things is even though we're part of a union, because the series is strictly DORS, we brought the union in once we had kind of got everything kind of worked through and said, okay, here's what we've done. They could have said, Yeah, no, we don't want you getting a pay raise. We worked at it that way just because and we had to cross even within our parent agency, if our parent agency, the Department of Education had a classification series and some of the stuff that they did, this would have never happened. Carol: right. Scott: Because of that uniqueness, we were able to get it done. Carol: Yeah, the stars were aligned for you, for sure. So how have these increases impacted your staff recruitment and retention? Scott: Oh, yeah. Big. I mean, it's like I mentioned earlier, we couldn't find staff or if we did, our supervisors and directors were making the decision of, I got to have a body, and so in some cases you're just getting a warm body. This has nothing to do with the person or anything like that. But they were probably individuals that this may not have been the best fit. But because you're sitting there as a supervisor and you've got 3 or 4 empty caseloads sitting on your desk, at least if I can get them in and get them do some work that's less work that I've got to do and so forth. So we were making some decisions on trying to sort of balance whether this was the right fit for people, but also looking at the number of people that are actually applying for the job was extremely low. I mean, we might come up with 4 or 5 individuals that...
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VRTAC-QM Manager Minute - SARA: Technology Solutions States Have Proven to Work -Alaska VR and SARA
03/03/2023
VRTAC-QM Manager Minute - SARA: Technology Solutions States Have Proven to Work -Alaska VR and SARA
Joining Carol Pankow in the studio today are Cody Dixon, Director of Operations SARAWorks, and Susan Baker, Program Coordinator II, Alaska VR. SARA provides a solution to VR programs with a client engagement and communications system that automatically gathers needed information at the right time from consumers and providers without staff intervention. SARA uses artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing and complements CMS functionality. Alaska VR has been an early adapter from SARA's first introduction. Susan tells us how Alaska VR utilizes SARA daily, and Cody brings us up to date with all the latest integrations and new states coming on board with SARA. SARA: Technology Solutions States Have Proven to Work -Alaska VR and SARA {Music} Speaker1: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow. Carol: Well, welcome to the Manager Minute. Joining me in the studio today are Cody Dixon, Director of Operations, SARAWorks, and Susan Baker, Program Coordinator II, Alaska VR. Thanks for joining me today, you guys. So, Cody, how are things going in the world of SARA? Cody: Good. We've been extremely busy. We've got a number of new states that are coming on board that we're working with and a number of new features that we're rolling out. So really excited to be here with you today. Carol: Glad to hear that. So, Susan, how are things going for you in Alaska? Susan: Well, it's pretty good up here in sunny Alaska. Just kidding. It's about 15 degrees. We still love SARA. We're actually getting an upgrade this weekend that we're really looking forward to. Things are going great. Carol: Awesome to hear that. Well, I'm in Minnesota, so I can empathize with the Alaska climate. Had some interesting winter weather this year for sure. So for some of our listeners, you may remember back to the days of WINTAC and a special project that was done to bring SARA to Voc Rehab, and the original idea was to provide a solution to VR programs that used this new kind of client engagement and communication system that automatically gathered needed information at the right time from consumers and providers without staff intervention. SARA uses artificial intelligence or AI and natural language processing and is complementary to a case management functionality. So if you fast forward seven years, SARA's really undergone some very cool changes and is once again part of a pilot program within our VRTAC for Quality Management. And I'm also really excited about hearing from a state that was at the forefront of using this and has remained a continued champion years later. So let's dig in. So, Cody, I'm going to turn to you first. Can you tell our listeners about yourself and what you do at SARA and a little more about your products? Cody: Yes, absolutely. So I'm the director of operations for SARAWorks, and we are an extremely small team. We are growing. But essentially, historically, I've been responsible for all of our new customer implementations doing the training, the configuration of SARA, making sure that SARA is doing what it's supposed to do for the agency, and then of course, keeping track of our support staff for our wonderful service that we provide, working with our development team as well. So just kind of making sure that all the day to day stuff is running as it should. We've got our primary product, which is SARA, and SARA is our application for counselors and case managers. And it's used typically to stay in contact with clients or consumers that are receiving services under the idea that we're really trying to use SARA as a communication hub with the idea to bridge that connection gap in human services. We believe that the good technology can be used and is going to be essential for creating human connection so that people don't fall through the cracks. And that's kind of where SARA comes in. Carol: Yeah, like that, that you use that term communication hub. That sums it up really well. So Susan, can you give our listeners a little more information about yourself? What's your role in Alaska? How many counselors do you have and the number of customers that you all serve? Susan: Sure. I am a Jill of all trades up there for in Alaska, a program coordinator. So really what that means is responsible for our quality assurance, our program reporting, our data requirements, our policies and procedures. And I'm also in charge of our case management system, our SARA communication system, our SharePoint system. So there's quite a bit of an IT aspect software support that comes out of my role as well. We are, you know, a big state geographically, but a small state population wise. We always like to remind Texas of that, but we only have about 25 counselors spread out through the state, though. But that's over you know, we're talking potentially 2500, 3000 miles apart in some places. And right now, our open caseload right now is around 1000 - 1500. Yeah, we're small, but mighty. Carol: Wow. That puts some perspective. I didn't realize you had 25 counselors across that expansive Alaska. So do folks have to, like, fly into places? Because I know some of your areas are so remote, how do they get to see certain customers? Susan: Absolutely. Yes. We have a few counselors that are dedicated to serving our rural populations, flying into hubs like Barrow, Ketchikan, Pretty amazing. It's a kind of a unique situation. They're flying in for about a week, trying to get as many informational referrals out there, then to get as many applications as they can going. And if there are open cases in that area or village, they're trying to work them as well. We do a lot with SARA helping us keep in touch when we're not in the area. Carol: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That gives such an interesting perspective. So, Cody, I understand SARA's gone through some changes and can you tell us what happened with the company and like where you live right now, it's different. Cody: Yeah, definitely. So back in September, SARA was acquired the company itself, the Career Index Corporation, the founders of SARA, was acquired by a company called Radical Health, which is a company that acquires software companies that are in the human services space and put together a new division called Radical Apps that SARA was the first product to fall into. And so under radical apps we have SARAWorks, which is how we've rebranded our company. So for some of our folks out there that recognize TCI or the Career Index we are now, SARAworks with our product, SARA. And under Radical, we are working to see how we can grow SARA's reach and help make an impact in other markets and other industries. Radical Health currently works with software companies that are in food banks and community food pantries and things like that, as well as foster care management, behavioral health and homeless management as well. So a couple of other areas that we feel that SARA could really make an impact. And as I mentioned earlier, we've been an extremely small team and so we didn't necessarily have the resources in place to make that happen and continue to see our vision grow. But with the help of Radical, we've got a roadmap to making that happen. And really just overall taking this concept of wanting to foster that connection in human services and helping clients feel like they're more than just a case ID and giving them that voice, using SARA to be able to maintain that connection with their agency and the service workers that are helping them. Carol: Well, Cody, I remember back to my days in Minnesota and we were trying to get your product and there were definitely some challenges with IT resources. And I understand you have a new venture that eases the burden on IT resources. What is that all about? Cody: Yeah, absolutely. We actually have a couple of things that we're working on in that regard. First of which was a strategic partnership that we entered into with Alliance Enterprises for their Aware case management solution. And so we are working with them at the moment on creating a way to interface the two systems together that eliminates the need for a state agency’s IT department to really be involved. Historically, we've relied upon the state agency to have to install a Windows service and maintain that service on a state server and things like that in order to get data to go back and forth between SARA and the system of record. So what we're working on with Alliance is to, number one, have that connection, bypass the need for the state agency to be involved. And then we're also working on a new API that will be more of a plug and play option for other agencies that might not utilize, Aware, maybe have something that's homegrown or one of the other larger vendors. So it's something that I'm really excited for. We are rolling into some testing right now and should have that solution rolled out by the end of quarter two. Carol: Wow, that's pretty cool. That's a big deal. I think that'll be a game changer for folks. I know we have a lot of people that are with Alliance, but there are a lot of folks that are not probably half the country is not. It's probably about a half and a half deal. So having that option for other folks as well, I think that is definitely going to be of interest to our listeners. I personally love your whole communication aspect of this and you talked about that communication hub. Can you just explain that a little more like all the things that can go into that? Cody: Yeah, absolutely. So we you know, we call SARA the communication hub and we continuously try to make improvements and enhancements and bring new features so that, you know, if you think of a way to stay in contact and connect with a client electronically, we want SARA to kind of be your go to source. So SARA has two components. There's an automated side of SARA, and then there's some manual tools that counselors and case managers can use to try and stay in contact. On the automated side of things, we actually configure SARA to typically follow a workflow of the process of the agency mirroring in SARA, what we call tracks, which are the case statuses to the system of record. And we train SARA to understand when clients need to be contacted, what it's regarding, and if there's any data or information that needs to be obtained from that individual in order to successfully move them on to the next case status. And with that, SARA utilizes email and text messaging to stay in contact, reach out and conduct interviews with the clients, find out how they're doing, and then, just like any good assistant would, generate alerts that go back to those counselors and case managers to inform them of what's going on with their client, as well as giving them information so they can make an informed decision of what action to take next. Do I step in and now offer that direct client engagement? And that's where those manual tools come in. We've also got the options for staff to be able to compose emails and compose text messages directly from the SARA application. So from the comfort of their keyboard, they can be sending out messages. They don't have to have their own cell phone or a state agency issued cell phone. They can send out those messages directly through SARA. And then over time, they also start utilizing SARA for sending out emails. And the reason to do that is that everything that SARA does is going to automatically create case notes. So no longer does a counselor have to send out an email in Outlook or their provider of choice and then go back into their system of record and leave a case note about the email they just sent. They just send it off in. SARA It creates that case note. That case note goes from SARA back over to the system of record. So you can imagine the amount of time that is saved over time as staff start utilizing those features. Additionally, we have a document management center that we're actually rolling out this week that includes things like electronic signature. We've got an Outlook calendar integration. SARA's really good at scheduling appointments and allowing opportunities for clients to reschedule appointments based upon counselor availability. And so we can connect with an Outlook calendar so that both the SARA calendar and the outlook calendar are in sync. And SARA truly knows, you know, when that counselor is available for appointments to be scheduled and rescheduled. And then we also have something that really came in handy during the beginning phases of the pandemic when agencies started working remotely but still trying to provide services. And that is a feature that we call ODIN, which is our on demand interview network, and it is a HIPAA compliant tele counseling platform so that counselors can conduct tele counseling sessions with up to nine participants at a time and providing them an opportunity to take case notes throughout that session that are only visible to them. And then at the end of the session, they click a button to save all those case notes. And there's one case note that goes into SARA that kind of documents what that session was regarding who the participants were that attended. And then all of the case notes that the counselor created. And then, of course, those case notes go back over to the system of record. So very cool stuff that we're that we're doing here at SARAWorks. Carol: Yeah it sounds super exciting. I was sitting in my head thinking, you know, kind of ticking the boxes about how much time you would save with a number of those items. That would be pretty amazing. So, Susan, you have been around since the beginning of SARA. I remember you were part of the pilot states up in Alaska. And I talked actually to the Alaska team. I bet it was maybe, I don't know, 5 or 6 years ago when we were all in Oklahoma at a PEQA conference. And I wanted to find out, like, how did you like it, what was going well? And I know that you all had struggled with some upfront kind of the communication and the implementation of the product. So what are some of the lessons you have learned along the way as you've implemented this? Susan: Yeah, sure. It's one of the questions I get from many states that reach out to me, and I bet we could have a whole separate podcast about lessons learned. But I do want to give a quick shout out to the Alaska team during that implementation time. It was exciting because we were helping build this product better, you know, like there were a handful of states that were just throwing more feedback back at Cody, Hey, let's try this. Hey, let's try this. And it's really cool to be a part of a product from the beginning and to say that Alaska VR agency was one of the agencies that helped kind of, you know, point it towards a really cool direction. Although I know Cody was always brainstorming, so don't want to take that away from him. But a quick shout out to Alaska VR for that. Hindsight's having stronger procedures and understanding your staff's capability in technology. Now, it's easy. Don't get me wrong, I love this product. I can't say enough about it. However, we do have to consider who we're serving and who our workforce is. So in hindsight, I wish I had prepared better procedures for them because it was scary at first. You know, change is hard. That would be the first one that I could go into. I often found myself saying, Well, what would you normally do when you get a message? And it was also during a time where we were just still kind of, you know, feeling it out. So if I had come on with SARA outside of that pilot world, I would have prepped with stronger instructions, if you will. Carol: Sure, that makes some sense. I get that. So how are you using SARA today? Because Cody just talked about all these cool new things, like are you guys implementing some of that or. I know some things are rolling out shortly, but how are you? Yeah, how are you using it today? Susan: Oh, our staff still rocks it. They're making appointments daily. I mean, how often we would get stood up pre-SARA to now is just so ridiculously less. I mean to have that reminder texts come in and remind the client that they have an appointment is just golden. We're kind of working with our IT to turn on that calendar integration. It's in progress, I'll say. But they would absolutely love that. That's kind of out of their hands at the moment. They are in it every day. New employees come in, we have training and it's a whole new feel about like people understand that the phone is dead. Mean, it's a little dramatic, you know, unless you're calling your doctor's office or your parents or family members or whatnot. But outside of that, I'm getting you know, I just got a reminder text from a chiropractor appointment. I have a couple of days, you know, the hair appointment that's around the corner. I mean, this is the age that we live in in terms of like helping us be where we need to be in one example. But on the other end, like, oh yeah, like I have this connection. I'm doing something with this place. And our clients, our clients really love it. You're going to have any type of survey you send out, you never know what kind of feedback you're going to get. But overwhelmingly, our clients enjoyed hearing like, okay, I've got something here, I've got a connection. So staff and clients do enjoy the product. Carol: That's awesome to hear. I wondered about that, how your staff and clients were responding to that. So that is terrific. Well, Cody, I understand you also have some exciting new things happening. What are you able to say? The new states that are being rolled out, you talked about you have a number of them. I don't know if you're able to disclose or not, but sometimes folks love to hear like, who are all the people I can talk to about that are using this product? Cody: Yeah, absolutely. One of our states we're working with right now is New Hampshire. They're actually working with us in conjunction with Alliance with the Aware Integration. And I think most of the customers or potential customers that we have at some point find their way to Susan and kind of lean on some of her expertise, as you know, with what Alaska has learned. And so we really value having Susan available to talk to a lot of these customers. Additionally, we are in the midst of rolling out Texas, so TWC, they are going through training with their statewide rollout right now that we hope to have finished in April. That's been a really exciting project for us, learning a lot along the way in terms of some additional areas that SARA might be able to help with down the road with different surveys and working with businesses and other employer vendors and things like that. So that's been exciting. And then we've got South Dakota and Maryland that are also coming up as well. Carol: Wow, that's very cool. You know, I was just thinking about all the complexities of these different states. You know, Texas is ginormous and they're also ginormous as far as staff and clients, whereas Alaska is ginormous but maybe has a smaller population of people. But how this application works across anybody and thinking about a lot of our states that may be smaller, but they have a lot of rural components. I think that's very interesting because it fits all the different sizes for sure. Now we have, SARA included, just for full disclosure, as a special project within the VRTAC for quality management. Can you talk about that just for a minute, Cody, what that's all about? Cody: Yes, absolutely. So the SARA portion of that project has actually allocated 220 SARA licenses, and that's how we market. SARA as a SaaS company is a...
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VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: How to take care of your employees so they take care of your business! Damian Schlinger-North Dakota VR
02/07/2023
VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: How to take care of your employees so they take care of your business! Damian Schlinger-North Dakota VR
Joining Carol Pankow in the studio today is Damian Schlinger, State Director of the North Dakota Division of Vocational Rehabilitation. Learn how Damian and his team moved from a double-triple check culture to one that encourages and enhances staff autonomy using techniques and strategies that have had tangible results. Listen as Damian explains how his agency is eliminating low-value activities and is focusing on keeping customers engaged to achieve quality outcomes in North Dakota. {Music} Speaker1: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow. Carol: Well, welcome to the manager minute. Damian Schlanger, State Director of the North Dakota Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, is joining me in the studio today. So thanks for joining me, Damian. How are things going in North Dakota? Damian: Things are going well. Good morning. Thanks for having me on, Carol. Carol: Well, it was so funny. I was telling Jeff, the podcast producer, I'm like, you know, when you were talking at CSAVR this fall, I felt a little bit like Simon Cowell. You know, there's a panel up there. I'm looking down and you started talking and my head went up. I'm like, Who is that guy? And I went right up to you after that general session. I'm like, Can you be on a podcast? I just think you have the most awesome things that are going on, and I wanted to make sure that we could spread that out to the rest of the country. And I really love the quote on your slide deck during the conference, "Take care of your employees and they take care of your business", by Richard Branson. And I just think you only had maybe 8 minutes to talk there. And I thought we could have a little deeper conversation this morning. So let's dig in. So can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself, like how long you've been at North Dakota VR and where do you come from? Because I know you did come out of VR. Can you tell everybody a little bit about your background? Damian: For sure, yeah. So I'm a relative newbie to vocational rehab, so I was just two years as of this last December here. So but I've always been in a helping profession. So the last 20 years I spent in the medical industry in various different roles, I started out actually as an athletic trainer. And for people that don't know what that is, my wife would always say, if somebody gets hurt on a field or at a game, the guy that goes running out, that's what my husband does. So that kind of gives me an idea that's good. So it was really good and it was a great career for the longest time. But then I had little kids in that night and weekend thing really didn't always work out. So yeah. So then I found my way into clinic management. I had a great mentor and supervisor and first I managed some walk in clinics and then some surgical clinics, and then I found my way to occupational medicine and that's actually where the link with VR happened. So sometimes we would get injured workers that couldn't go back to their previous place of employment because the injury was so severe. So we had to figure out what could they do. So we would do functional capacity assessments and things of that nature. And then I would be on the call sometimes with a Voc Rehab counselor, and they would ask, Could they do this? Could they stand? Could they sit? So yeah. So then when I was looking to further my career in a Voc Rehab position came open for a director, I thought, Oh, that would be perfect. Yeah, that's kind of how I got my way here. Carol: Very cool. That is kind of wild. I know we've all fallen into it in different ways, and that's really neat. I'm glad to know that about you. Give us a little picture about North Dakota VR. Like, how many customers do you guys serve? How many staff you have, and maybe a little bit about the challenges you're facing. You've got a very different complexity in your state. Damian: Yeah. So we have definitely a high rural population. A lot of our state is rural and then there's obviously these big population centers throughout the state. So that's somewhat of a challenge. And then what has been great is across these last few years coming out of the pandemic, things have really increased to the point where we're starting to challenge our all time highs in certain areas. And I know certain states might listen to this and go, Oh, that's really small or whatever, but it's whatever your situation is, if you can challenge some of those all time highs, I think that's great. So certainly our clients served about 3800 of those each year. In our OIB, we actually helped 555 individuals last year. I think there was like 313 applications. But some of those things are going really well and coverage into rural areas is just a part of what we do. We have eight regions is kind of how we carve our state up and then we know there's a lot of windshield time in covering those more rural areas. Carol: So about how many counselors would you have that cover all of that? Damian: In the state, there are about 40. So in our bigger regions there might be as many as seven or eight, and then the smaller ones are usually 2 to 3. Carol: Gotcha. Well, I remember my grandma lived in Bismarck, and so even when I was learning to drive, my mom made us have so many hours behind the wheel. And I'm like, I'll drive to grandma's because it took us about 10 hours to get there. It was a long state to get through, to get to Bismarck. But I get my time in. So I completely understand that whole windshield time that folks have. So I know when you came in, you really hit the ground running. How did you come up with these activities You have focused on this past year around your staff? Damian: One thing that I've been fortunate to do is because I've been in different spots, usually I'm in a spot for about four years is when I look backwards on my career. And so it's given me an opportunity to get into different situations where sometimes it's a realignment, sometimes you're starting up, sometimes they have great success and they just need to be polished. Some of the clinics or areas that I've been in. But what was interesting about ours is that they had really good, I call it Good Bones, almost like a house, You know, it's got good bones. You know, you don't have to replace a whole lot of things, but just to try to align everybody. So one thing that was interesting is that they had not, I don't know if team building efforts or coming across regions with different ideas was commonplace. I think they would sometimes share best practice, but it was almost like if it happened, it wasn't necessarily something they concentrated on. And when I visited the regions, all these folks, whether it was Frontline or regional administrators, had great ideas and then I had seen them. Maybe we're only enacted in that one region and I thought the other seven regions could really benefit from that. And plus, who doesn't love, you know, you have a great idea. And to see that come out of your mind and get legs and run across the state is a fantastic feeling. So that's a lot of what we concentrated on was just trying to get people to just share ideas and come together across the state. Carol: Yeah, I think that's super cool. I know you have this dual approach. You really are focused on both the staff and your customers or clients or whatever you may call them in your state. And like in VR, we're always talking about clients in business and I think staff does get left out of this conversation. So I know you walked into this culture that was kind of double triple checks. You talked about that at the conference. How did you go about kind of beginning to revamp that culture? Damian: I always think about assuming positive intent. I do a lot of reading on psychology and things of that nature and even the double and triple check cultures, if they exist, and those existed in the medical community that I started as well. It comes from a good places that you want to do the very best for your client, your patient, your whatever you call them, right? You want to have them have the best service ever. So I also know there's individuals that are really performance driven, but it's the same goal, right? They want to have great things happen for the customer. So it's about blending those two perspectives. So when I started to think about that even early in the career, I'm embarrassed to talk about it. But I ran headlong into a brick wall because I thought about the patient very much and thought about performance. Like how many could we serve, how quickly we could we get them in and out because nobody wants to be someplace for an hour and a half, especially if you're sitting in a clinic. But then what I realized is that my staff, I didn't share some of my thoughts necessarily openly outside my head a whole lot. You know, we think about things a lot, and that continues to be a challenge for myself. But trying to understand, it's like I introduced a higher challenge to them. But then what I didn't understand is I wasn't necessarily investing in listening to them or growing their skills. So it's like those two pathways have to emerge together. So I actually pulled the staff together and I apologized to them. So then I was aware of it, you know what I mean? I couldn't just concentrate on the clients. It had to be growth of the team members as well as the service to the client as well. And so that's when I found out really Myers-Briggs, Keirsey Temperament Sorter, all those things. The big five, those were like the map. Otherwise it felt like I was stumbling around in the dark. But when I found those that felt like the key, really understanding individual motivation and the types of folks that are out there and then how to grow them, and then when they feel great and they're engaged and they're growing, the clients, it just it's natural. It's like peanut butter and jelly. Carol: Oh, absolutely. You sing to my heart because I love that. I was always big on the Clifton Strength Finders. We did that because a lot of times you focus on people's deficits. So we're going to fix that. But why don't we build on the strengths people have and make them even like superpowers? And so really leaning into what are people doing well and helping them to do more of that. Damian: Yeah, and there's all kinds of them out there too. I love, yeah, like you said, strength finders. We've done that as well. And actually what was interesting here just recently, we're starting to do a lot of like self directed project teams. And I also have done Disc assessments which really talks about personalities as they perform inside of a team because it's great if you have an individual, but who are we kidding? Like even in high school, my kids have been doing project based learning since they were in middle school, so I'm glad that that's happening in the schools because that's what real life is like. You rarely work as a lone wolf, so understanding that and who might be the best person to run the project? Who might be your document creator? Who might be your reporter or communicator, it really helps fit those skills in. A lot of those are based off of the same research. That's Carl Jung and all that. I remember doing actually a personality profile one time where they divided you into animals. You're either a golden retriever or a beaver or but it's all based on the same kind of four categories, you know. Carol: So yeah, it is super helpful. I know for folks maybe not using that. I liked that too. We did that with some of our self directed teams and we realized like we were kind of new into it and we were super excited and we're having these teams that there was a team and they were all awesome at talking, but there wasn't like that leader person to, okay, here's our agenda and keep that going. And we realized like that was bad on us because we hadn't sort of sorted that out correctly to have all the different styles within the team so you could get something all the way accomplished, right? You can't put all the same people together because then they're all just chatting. And so I learned a lot just applying those kind of principles. I think that's cool. Now, I know you guys did a survey and I understand that the state was using the Gallup Survey. Can you describe like how that process went? Damian: Yes. So actually, the first survey that they did statewide came out actually a month or two before I even started. And what I like about this is it gives you an objective measure because I think you can get into any setting or into any region or whatever position you are, and you can kind of get a feel for it across time. But it is just that it's a feel and it's just a perspective from whatever seat you're at. So it was great about the Gallup survey is that you can break it down for region. I think you had to have at least five individuals because then they wouldn't parse the data out. They would really want to make sure things are confidential. But then you can take a look at certain groups. You could take a look at your leaders. So like your regional leaders, you could look at state office, you could look at all the leaders together, all of VR together. So that was really important to understand, like what the needs and concerns were for certain audiences. So then what they did is, so they did it in October of what would that have been? 20? And then they did another one in the spring and now they do it every October. Just to make sure that we understand where we're at. So we were at a, I think, 31% engagement at that time. And so we recognized that that was low for sure. And I know that they say through Gallup, at least their research is when you're at 50% roughly engagement, that's super. Anything north of that is fantastic. So even if you're around that, that's great. So then we really did a lot to make sure that we understood. It's like it was a new day and actually we were just coming off that it was 100 years of VR. So it's like, what are we going to do to reinvent it for the next 100 say? So we did a lot of looking at going out to our regions, understanding where the crux of the issues when we're trying to deliver service to clients. And that was new. There was one lady that had said, I don't know the last time I've seen a director, it's been years, you know, so you really want to make sure that we went out to them physically and saw them as well, because that means a lot they feel invested in. So it's just through that, including in projects. We created small teams in each region to then address their issues and talk about them and then took action. And a lot of it was just saying yes to a lot of the things they wanted to do, and that turned it. So we went to 61% and then now this last year I think I might have pressed the pedal a little too far on our performance. So there's always that balance to play. So back down to about 50%. So then I recognized, okay, you know, we're going to do a little bit more, make sure we're mixed and growing skills to match the challenges that are out there. Carol: That's really cool because you can see, like the fruits of your labor. It's directly in those percentages. I get that. I know you had talked back at the conference when you were telling us your stories and you really threw your staff for a loop by that, going out and popping in on Zoom and all those different things, and they really didn't know what to make of you. I thought that was kind of cool. So what kind of tangible things have you seen change as a result of the efforts you put into place these last two years? Damian: Oh, sure. There is so much, and I think there's probably tangible parts of it, and then there are also parts that you just feel like, I don't know if you still want to call them tangible, but maybe they aren't. Like when I think of the sort of soft indicators, I can tell that the team members know we have a place within HHS because HHS is where we're housed in the state. And then they're also, of course, aging divisions and DD divisions and so on and so forth. And there's hundreds of millions of dollars, lots of staff. So I think initially there was maybe that feeling like you're the redheaded stepchild, but now they know it. And of course, because now the workforce issue is such a great thing, not just in our state, but throughout the nation, they know we have a place at the table. So a lot of that was even just inviting in, like my supervisor, who was one of the executives at HHS, talking about our importance in a staff meeting of leaders and then also in our all staff meeting. So that made them feel connected to the rest of the group. So I know if you want to actually call that tangible, but it was a big thing. Carol: Oh, yeah, I call it tangible. That's pretty cool. Damian: Good. And then just relationships with a lot of our providers are certainly other warmer. They're more frequent, they're more collaborative. One of the regional administrators said back in the golden era, he would call it that, you know, we did X, Y and Z. So we really restored a lot of that because we realized that as our providers go, so goes VR. So that was a critical relationship to mend and then also elevate. And we're trying to do that with a lot of other areas advocacy groups, employers, our sister divisions or sections within HHS. It's all working in that direction. Carol: Good for you. Good stuff. What are your next steps like? What do you want to do next? Or are you just continuing on this trajectory? Do you have some big ideas? Where are you going? Damian: Oh, sure. And actually this is a great time. So we just took a look at our strategy now have our strategic plan set for 2023. So we really have four major areas of concern. So one is certainly staff development. We continue to have new challenges. The needs of our clients change every year and we want to make sure that we really keep up on that. Another one is what we call just efficiency and design. So a lot of it matches our main areas or strategic priorities. We are still a lot of paper and pen and we don't use a lot of electronic systems, so we do want to transition to that type of situation and also see if we can centralize some teams. So we worked with different states, Texas, Indiana and in Nebraska just to see what they have going on, because we want to use the best of what anybody's done throughout the nation. And then we're also looking at other things like outreach, continuing to expand outreach awareness, whether it's meeting with partners like I just talked about or social media. We just want to be where the eyeballs are as much as possible to attract as many clients as we can. It was actually a really great compliment and I feel so great for all the people that work in VR. I just did our budget detail testimony this last week and one of the senators asked, he said at the end of the presentation, he said, everything seems to be going up and going well in VR, where some of ours aren't as busy. He goes, What's the secret? I did not want to leave the podium and I'm not a great public speaker. I usually want to get off of there as soon as I can, but that was a really great feeling. It just speaks to the work that's been done across the last couple of years because I think we concentrated on the right things and the right stakeholders. So we're excited about that and looking forward to this next year. So self directed teams is a big part of that. So if my leaders hear this podcast before Monday morning, maybe they'll have a little bit of heads up, but we're going to continue to grow in that direction. Carol: That's very cool. I know there's nothing better than...
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VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Be Bold - Moving VR Forward with the Idea Guy- David D'Arcangelo-Massachusetts Commission for the Blind
01/06/2023
VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Be Bold - Moving VR Forward with the Idea Guy- David D'Arcangelo-Massachusetts Commission for the Blind
In the studio, today is David D'Arcangelo, Commissioner of the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind. David has focused on making MCB the best it can be. Learn about the concept of disability as a qualification, the Accessibility Technology Survey, the entrepreneurial program developed with NIB, and dig into the 32 reallotment projects MCB has done over the past few years. David is the Idea Guy and shares a lot of information in this brief 30-minute conversation. Find out more about what is happening at MCB: {Music} Speaker1: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow. Carol: Well welcome to the Manager Minute. Joining me in the studio today is David D'Arcangelo, Commissioner of the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind. Thanks for joining me today, David. How are things going in Massachusetts? David: Going very well. Looking forward to a great 2023. And thanks for having me again. Carol: You bet. Me too. I love this 2023. I have my little resolutions for this year. You know, I really want to be intentional. That's one of my things. So I know I had you on the show over a year ago and we were talking about some of your great employment strategies during National Disability Employment Awareness Month. And you have had so many cool initiatives going on in your state that I think of you as the Idea Guy. I put you and Joe Xavier from California up there as two bold leaders in VR that we can all learn something from. Now, I know you've been keeping your head down and really looking forward focused on making your agency the very best it can be. And it also seemed like you were having some just really amazing employment successes for customers during COVID. So now more than ever, we need to take some serious steps to address the problem of spending VR dollars and improving outcomes. And you started looking at the problem when you first started at MCB and you hit the ground running. So let's dig in. I know we have lots to talk about. So David, can you remind our listeners about yourself? Where did you come from and how long have you been at MCB? David: Sure. Well, I'm a consumer of MCB also, and being legally blind from a young age. I remember getting VR services back when I was in junior high school and high school. So that's really my first impression with MCB was as a consumer, as a young man. But since joining MCB in 2018, I came over from the Office on Disability, where I was the director of the Massachusetts Office on Disability. So when the MCB position opened up and got an opportunity to serve. And, making great strides for these past five years and looking forward to hopefully more time to be able to get our people employed and help lead our people to more independence and self determination. Carol: That's awesome. So can you tell us a little bit about MCB? Like, how many staff do you guys have and how many customers are you serving currently? David: Sure. So we're one of the first blindness agencies in the country. We often argue with Connecticut, if they were first, we were first, but we were established in 1906 with one of our first commissioners being Helen Keller. So we have a long history and track record of providing services for people with blindness throughout Massachusetts. We currently serve approximately 24,000 people in Massachusetts with all types of services. Massachusetts is a little bit different than many of the other states. We don't provide just for VR services, and that's not to diminish VR services, but we also provide what we call our services or social rehabilitation services and deafblind extended support services. So we serve people who are blind and deafblind and people with blindness and then additional significant disabilities. So that adds up. Our 24,000 people and our range of blindness really is the whole spectrum. So everybody from hi partial and legally blind like me all the way to somebody who has no light perception at all. And we know from the data that we've collected that actually there's probably more people at MCB as consumers who have visions closer to me than vision, closer to somebody who has no light perception at all. So we've got some data that's going to be coming out that I would encourage everybody to look at. We did an assistive technology survey recently with all of our consumers that really reveals information that I think people will take notice of because many times people were thinking that, oh, well, your consumers, they can't see, so they're not on the Internet or they're not taking part with this technology. And our survey really sheds new light on that. So stay tuned for that. You can check that out on our website, Mass.gov/MCB. It's really going to be an important survey when we reveal these results. It's going to be eye opening for people. Carol: Well, cool. Yeah. Shoot me a note when that comes out. I'm really interested in seeing that. Do you also serve individuals like starting as babies? Like because some programs I know do that. We did not in Minnesota but I know some start very young with kids. David: Yeah in Massachusetts we serve people from birth to death. So cradle to grave with all of our services and the social rehabilitation services that we provide are really geared around independence and self determination. So we will start providing services as soon as somebody gets that mandatory report of legal blindness and they're declared, which we are the keeper of, that we register somebody as legally blind after their doctor, their eye care provider, has provided us with that record. And then we get the services flowing, whether it's teaching Braille or providing assistive technology, orientation and mobility, training, all of these core services, we really believe getting those in place first. Carol: Yeah David: That's really going to help in terms of VR. It's setting the bedrock so people are already independent and self determined and then can focus on their career goals. Carol: Yes. So smart. You've got the foundational pieces in place and early, you know, you're getting at the students early, which is incredible. That is great. That is great. So I really liked your getting grounded in that three part framework. You talk about it and I was reading it again on your website about the Path to Prosperity is Paved with Perseverance. Can you tell me more about that? David: Sure. Carol, thanks. Really. I first said that publicly during the commencement address that I gave for Lesley University's Threshold Program. Lesley University has a great program for people with intellectual disabilities where they provide a college like experience. And back in 2017, when I was director of the state's Office on Disability, I had the great opportunity to be able to provide the commencement address there. And that's really where I first laid out that I believe the path to prosperity is paved by perseverance. Or what does that mean? I think that becoming employed is not a one step thing. There are many steps on that path on your career journey. So we really try to instill in to our consumers here at MCB that there is no get rich quick scheme. This is not a one click approach like so many of us are conditioned today through these devices and through technology. Just one click in your in. Getting a career, getting employed, getting your job, getting on that path to prosperity takes many steps. You got to hang in there because it's not easy. If it was easy, it would be done easily and everybody would do it. Everybody would be a multimillionaire. It takes many steps and depending upon your disability or in mass commission for the blind on your blindness, there's such a spectrum. And really we have to work with everybody individually because everybody is in a different stage in life. And some people are aging into blindness. Some people, it comes upon them quickly. Some people have it from a young age, some people come to it at mid age. It's so different for everybody. And we really just want to make sure that people are clear what the expectations that we're going to be with them through their journey along this path and that it does take time. All good things come in time. So that's really what the path to prosperity is paved with. Perseverance is about that you've got to persevere. These are challenging things. The very essence of being a person with a disability. Disability comes with challenge, It does. And so we try to get people to accept their disability, accept that challenge and then help them work through it. And so I believe in people and I believe anybody can become employed. I think work matters. I think it goes to the identity of a person. If I were to see you in the grocery store and we would have strike up a conversation, invariably one of the first questions that you or I would ask each other is, Well, so what do you do? And if you're employed, you're going to tell me about your job because it goes to the identity, it goes to who you are and what you're accomplishing. So work matters. Our consumers matter, and that's why we want to try to get them employed, because there's so many contributions in our community that we're trying to bring out for the benefit of our consumers, but also for the benefit of society. I really believe that our people have a lot to give and you've got to hang in there. That's part of being on the path to prosperity. Carol: I think that is one of the cool things with blind services. It's very foundational. All the things that you have to learn. And I remember being at Minnesota blind and just seeing that, especially with people that came in that were new to their vision loss and it happened abruptly. Something happened, an illness or something overnight almost, and you wake up and you can't see and everything changes. How you read, how you get around in the world, how you get around in your home and your clothes and like how you do everything and having to learn all those foundational pieces first and getting that acceptance and then working on work skills because you can't just launch right into that when somebody goes, I don't even know if I'm wearing the orange socks with the black suit. I don't know what I have on. David: One of the initiatives we've been working on and we keep advancing is something that I came up with about ten years ago that I've been trying to encourage people in VR to embrace, and that is the concept of disability as a qualification. I really believe that the lived experience that our people have to learn to problem solve around is a qualification in and of itself. Let me give you an example. If I were to take somebody with good vision and ask them to cross a busy intersection, they probably wouldn't think twice of it. Right? Carol: Right. David: But to take one of our consumers who can't see and ask them to cross an intersection, the skills involved and the intestinal fortitude involved with crossing that intersection. You know what? I want that person on my team, if they're going to be able to go out and have the intestinal fortitude to be able to do that and then the demonstrated skill to be able to do it, because that takes sophistication, if that life experience does not qualify you for some type of role that deals with problem solving. How many employment opportunities are there out there for people who are good problem solvers, for people that have a solid backbone and won't just roll over? Right? Carol: Right. I love that you say that. David: Those are qualifications, those matter. Carol: They do matter. So I'm just going to say a little thing about me. When we were in Minnesota at the blind agency, all of the leadership team and the VR counselors, the staff, you had to go through six weeks of sleep shade training, so you were under sleep shades for six weeks. And so doing that as a new director myself, having that experience, it's just a taste, but we did go to one of our Adjustment to Blindness Training Centers. We had the experience of the classes all day under sleep shades. I still remember at the end of the day, walking out. I had my cane. I was still had my sleep shades on. I'd taken them off and I got in my car. I scared a lady that was across the street. She's like, That blind lady is driving now, but getting that very firsthand experience about that problem solving that goes into everything you do during the day that is so interesting and very applicable to the world of work, for sure. David: Yeah. So that's why we're pushing disability as a qualification. We believe that those lived experiences are going to help employers and a really good qualifications for employees. Carol: Yeah, that's very cool. Very interesting thought. So I want to take you back to 2020. You asked for reallotment dollars, but you had some very specific initiatives you wanted to accomplish and in fact, you were dealing with the pandemic and you wanted to figure out your role in pioneering a path forward in a post-COVID recovery. So talk to me about what went into that 2020 that ask for reallotment dollars and kind of how you framed up all of those initiatives. David: Sure. Well, we wanted to make the best use of our time knowing that we were not going to have the community interactions and be able to travel freely like we had been doing. So we said, let's study this and let's come up with some things now, some of the things we had put in motion, some of the plans that we had put in motion were prior to COVID. So it seemed that we were prescient on some of them, like our ad campaign we did, What's Your Vision? So now we've been on Massachusetts television with our announcements, not just public service announcements, but paid ads to be able to get the message out to employers, Hey, we've got candidates for you and get the message out to our consumers that, hey, we'll work with you to get on this path to employment. So there's campaigns like that. But then we followed it up. Once we knew COVID was in there and we did our Quest for Independence, which is a graphic novel which is aimed at not only the consumer, but people in the consumer's sphere of influence, their brothers, their sisters, their fathers and mothers and guidance counselors and people there so that those people can understand the path to employment that we lay out in the process that we do. So it starts at pre training and goes through all of the steps along the way and we make it like a questing journey. We made it like kind of cool and try to put it in a format that people of Pre-ETS age would be more apt to buy into. So many of the VR documents are black and white text only small print, like who's reading that? Who's consuming that? Certainly not a 15 or 18 year old person that we're trying to get interested in the workforce. So whether it's things like that or whether it's studying Disability as a Qualification that we just talked about or trying to do some of the other surveys that we put together, we really tried to make the best use of our time. I think in all total now we're up to 32 or 34 reallotment projects that we've done over the past three or four years. Carol: Oh my gosh! David: Yeah. We've really tried to make good use of our time and build the catalog of information. And all of this is available to VR people if they want to visit our website again, Mass.gov/MCB. All of the re allotment projects are out there. We have studies on the Built Environment in the Workplace. We have studies on Disability as a Qualification on Assistive Technology. So many different topics we have data on as well as these ad campaigns. We did one with Sleep Machine recently. We worked up 16 different types of consumers and interactions that it's not a one size fits all approach. We really got it into 16 different approaches, so it tries to suit all of the different demographic areas, and that's a VR approach that we took so many different projects that we encourage people to find out more on our website. Carol: I know you did a lot of data analysis. There were a lot of projects around different data analysis, so maybe talk about one or two of those and how you used that data to now kind of inform your programming or whatever you're doing now at the agency. David: Well, the assistive technology one is a perfect example like. When I came to MCB and I said, I want to do a survey, they kind of like chuckled and I'm like, Why do you want to do? And I said, Well, how many of our people have email or how many of them use the Internet? I remember distinctly without naming names, but some really veteran VR people saying, none of our people use the Internet Commissioner or they don't do this. Well, come to find out that 70% use it daily. That right there was like informing our programming because no longer was I going to allow this myth to be put forward that our people don't use the Internet. That's just not so. Now we've got to make sure that we're making these sites accessible. So a recent proposal that I've been working on is a registered apprenticeship program for our consumers who are blind. Who better to make these websites accessible than people who are already using screen reader technology? So we're trying to get two registered apprenticeships, one in making web pages accessible, and then the other for making other online things accessible apps and forms and documents online and things like in the electronic space. So we're working right now with the Department of Labor, but we're also seeking other states. You need five states to be able to make a cohort to do it. So if people are interested in joining our cohort, please contact us and let us know if you want to join in this registered apprenticeship program that we're going to be launching soon. Carol: That's super cool and very smart and needed. I mean, there's a lot of sites, a lot of websites in a lot of trouble because they are not accessible. I love that you did the Assistive Technology survey. I've thought for years, like the invention of Apple and the iPhone and all of that single handedly changed just information for people who are blind, visually impaired because that device is accessible and it was built-in. There's so many cool apps now and things out there that our folks are using now. I know you also contracted out for your comprehensive Statewide Needs Assessment and that that isn't necessarily new. A lot of states do that because it's much easier to contract with someone than do it yourself. But what was different about that particular assessment and how do you use the information that you got from that? David: Yeah, again, I think that was the one where we put it out there and the awarded bidder I think was the public consulting group. So they're a pretty big firm. They had worked in other states before. I think one of the things that they had worked in was like Indiana. And so we work with them. Obviously our sister agency, MRC, we wanted to make sure that we were kind of on the same page as well. So I think that helped and really it helped strengthen the things that we already knew we were doing well. They really came in and were able to look at that and say, Yeah, you know what, you should probably keep doing that. Did identify some areas and we've made some adjustments as well. And I think now in this post COVID world, we were prescient that we were trying to already get our people to be able to work remotely, whether it be our staff, who a significant amount of our staff are actually our consumers also, which were very prideful in that they'd been remote prior to COVID. And so now the trends in...
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VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Florida General— Creative Staffing Solutions that Work
12/06/2022
VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Florida General— Creative Staffing Solutions that Work
Tina Herzik, the Vice President of Operations for Service Source, and Brent McNeal, the Director of the Florida Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, join forces with Carol Pankow in the Manager Minute studio to chat about creative staffing solutions in the great State of Florida. Tina and Brent discuss how the Florida General agency and Service Source are partnering to meet staffing needs with a unique model. With a business relationship that spans over 22 years, the duo shares how their two organizations continue to serve as front runners of innovative staffing practices and transformational leadership. {Music} Speaker1: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow. Carol: Well, welcome to the manager minute. Joining me in the studio today is Tina Herzik, Service Source vice president of operations for the VR program in Florida, and Brent McNeal, director of the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation. Florida. General, I am so happy to have you both with me in the studio today. So, Brent, how are things going in Florida? Brent: Things are going well, Carol. Thank you. We're definitely happy to see the end of the hurricane season here in Florida and looking forward to going through the homestretch here into the holiday break. Carol: Yeah, I've seen you've had a lot of weather. We had our own 13 inches of snow on Monday, so at least you don't have that. Holy cow. So, Tina, how about you? Tina: Same thing. Just getting over trying to lose that word pandemic and getting back to normalcy. But I live in Vero Beach, so happy that last hurricane didn't take us down. But we're standing. Carol: Strong. Yeah, absolutely. Know all the Florida folks. I really you know, our hearts go out to y'all with everything that happened in that Fort Myers area. That is something else. I don't know how you deal with that all the time. That kind of those terrific weather conditions that can really just devastate a whole area. So I know you're rebuilding and people are working strong. So, Brent, it was really fun meeting you live and in person at the CC VR Leadership Forum before the conference began, and we all heard a pretty sobering message about the state of the national VR program. And we've got to spend the money. Each agency is facing different challenges, but the factor that binds us all together has to do with finding ways to expend funds. So the VR program, much like the rest of business across the country, is in the midst of a staffing crisis and trying to seek solutions to meet customer needs. Now, I know Florida General has a model that's been in place for over 20 years as a result of a legislative change. Now, this model is not really conventional, and I think you're the only people in the country doing something quite like this. But you have worked out all the kinks and have really learned so many lessons. So we thought others could benefit from the work that you all have done. And there's really a unique partnership that really is withstanding the test of time. So let's dig in. So, Brent, why don't you tell us a little about yourself, your background, how you came to VR and a little bit about Florida General? Brent: Sure. First of all, I'm happy to be here. I echo the statements that you've made, we certainly are in the same boat as other programs around the country. And so this is a way that folks could explore to spend some of those funds and to better provide services to their customers. So my background, I came to VR first in 2009. It was my first job out of law school, actually, and did not know anything about VR or what it was, but quickly became so interested and invested because of the good work that I saw that the division was doing and so really enjoyed getting to learn the program. I also represented our Florida Division of Blind Services, so got to do a lot of interesting work and Randolph Shepherd and in other areas with that unit. So that is how I came to VR. I worked with VR in a legal capacity for around eight years and then took this director's position back in February. So coming up on one year here shortly in terms of Florida General, we're housed within the Florida Department of Education, headquartered in beautiful Tallahassee, Florida. The states broken up into seven geographical areas, and each of those has an area director. Now, we haven't always been here in the Department of Education, and we'll talk a little bit about some of the history and where the division was previously. But yeah, we've been with the Department of Education for a number of years now and are a big component of Florida DOH. Carol: So your background really positions you nicely for this job because you know, the regs really probably pretty inside and out as being the attorney for the agency for so long. Brent: You know that part is certainly helpful and I tap into it regularly. I have to resist the urge to just be the lawyer. And we have a very capable and wonderful deputy general counsel that leads our VR legal team. So I defer to Nicole Saunders now on legal matters, but it is nice to have that background as well as those relationships that I was able to build as the attorney, including with folks like Tina. Carol: Absolutely. So how many people do you serve and how many staff does Florida General have? Brent: For the past several years, it has varied between around 45000 to 50000 individuals receiving services within a state fiscal year. We have 884 full time equivalent staff that are employees of the division of the state of Florida. Carol: Wow. That is huge. Are you in the top five programs in the country or something? As far as size, I think. Brent: I think we must be I know that we're one of the largest. And, you know, Florida is such a diverse state, too. We talk about from the tip of the panhandle, which is where I grew up over in Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties, all the way down to the Florida Keys. And, you know, those two ends of the state could not be more different in terms of, well, just geography, but also all of the economics, you name it, just really diverse and a lot of different challenges throughout the state for such a big state as Florida. Carol: Yeah, tough for you to just like we're going to drive to all the offices today. That can't happen. So the model I alluded to, what is this model that Florida general is working under to meet your staffing needs? Brent: For over 20 years now, Florida VR has been working with Service Source in a successful public private partnership, and that's really added service capacity in our state. And so I'm looking forward to telling everyone more about that today. Carol: Very cool. So, Tina, I didn't mean to leave you out.. Why don't you tell our listeners about yourself and your background and how you kind of fit into this picture? Tina: Oh, thank you, Carol, And thanks for inviting us here today. I have been in Florida most of my life here. As I said, I live in Vero Beach. I did live where you are from in Minnesota for five years. So I've enjoyed the Minnesota life as well. I started my career out as a teacher, so working with the youth has always been very close to my heart. I obtained my master's degree while working under this contract over the years and rehabilitation counseling, I have my CRC, my Certified Rehabilitation Counseling license. I was the second employee hired under this original contract with this partnership in 2001 as a vocational rehabilitation counselor. Believe it or not, I took this job under a newspaper advertisement. Does anybody know what that is anymore? So the director that hired me to start up was the startup director for the privatization project, Steve Palumbo. Steve had worked with the state of Florida VR system for many years. He started this privatization. He was a great mentor to me. I was very green, just like Brent talks about coming in. I didn't know that much at all about what I was getting myself into. I had no idea that 20 years later I'd be as excited as I am about what we do. And as he mentored me over the years, I started out as a VRC, so I was a vocational rehabilitation counselor for a few years and then I became a unit supervisor for one of our largest units, which was one of the first units in this partnership on the Treasure Coast. It serves four different counties, and I did that for about 11 years. And then when Steve retired in 2017, I became the director for the program and have held that position ever since. I've worked with Service Source for over 20 years and I've been very excited to be part of what I always say to people, kind of the trailblazer of this type of model. And it's been great because, as Brent said, we also work together very closely when he was the attorney for VR. So it's just been a great partnership. Carol: So Brent, what happened back in the 1999 legislative session that led to your model for meeting staffing needs? Brent: Well, I'll give the caveat that obviously I wasn't around at this time, but I've done some research and know anecdotally that there were some similar circumstances to what we're facing now. There are very high caseloads. We had a number of vacancies that were presenting challenges and consequently we had some underserved areas in Florida where folks were having a hard time receiving VR services. In response to that problem, the Florida legislature passed Senate Bill 230 and which directed VR and I'll quote, to enter into local public private partnerships to the extent that it is beneficial to increasing employment outcomes for persons with disabilities and ensuring their full involvement in the comprehensive workforce investment system. So at that time, Florida VR was broken into 24 regions. The division was housed in another state agency at that time and had not made the move to the Department of Education. So there were 24 regions in stark contrast to our seven areas now, and initially contracts were only awarded for three of those 24 regions. Service Source was awarded two of the three contracts that were initially awarded after procurement was conducted in 2000. And just a little bit more about Senate Bill 230. It did include a section on the legislative intent, which I thought might be interesting to listeners, and it basically states the legislature finds that individuals with disabilities experience the highest unemployment rate of any group in society as high as 75%, and that unemployment and poverty go hand in hand. The legislature also finds that persons who complete the vocational rehabilitation program are twice as likely to obtain and maintain employment, and the use of private providers is the readiest way to add service capacity for this population. I'll stop there. Carol: That's really interesting. You know, we're still facing that issue today with people with disabilities being one of the largest groups that have issues with unemployment and living in poverty. And so the needle has not changed a ton, but you were able to increase capacity. So let me just clear this up. Did the legislature at the same time, did they like freeze your FTEs or you actually lost some FTEs, but you could then use this source to be able to make up the difference? Brent: I don't know that there was a simultaneous move with respect to FTEs. I know that over the years that has occurred where they have been frozen or we have been permission to expand, but I don't know if that was occurring simultaneous to this effort in 1999. And Tina may be able to speak a little bit more about that because obviously there was some trepidation on the part of division employees to this fairly significant change. Carol: Well, absolutely. They're thinking we're being eliminated. You're taking our jobs away. So, Tina, why don't we go to you? Because you were around back in 1999. What's your perspective on what happened back then? Tina: Yeah, absolutely. I actually remember it like it was yesterday. As I said, when I came into the position, I remember, you know, you start your first day on the job with your little box of all your desk items and you're walking in. And state workers at the time, field staff looked very concerned. There was a lot of concern and it wasn't the welcoming that you might have expected on your first day of your new job, because I didn't know that at the time and didn't understand it. But as time went on, I understood that the communication wasn't very clear on why we were there and what we were doing there. But we were brought in. We were brought in to work alongside state employees. So at the time we were working in the same offices right next door and taking over some of the caseloads. And, you know, everybody's very particular about giving up their caseloads. But what I believe happened at that time is VRC caseloads, the vocational rehabilitation counselors were dealing with over 300 plus cases in certain units. There were counties that, as we were talking about, were completely underserved. As I said, I started out here on the Treasure Coast. There are four counties on the Treasure Coast, very large school districts that needed to be served. And we are about an hour and a half driving distance from the actual area office for the state. So this worked very well and it took a little bit of time. But when the employees started to feel the relief and some of the challenges they were having and they realized we weren't there to take their jobs, I feel like over time it just made things a lot easier when they saw the positive responses and that they still had their jobs and they were able to leave as they retired and there was no difference. In that particular office, those people, those state workers left over time through retirement. And then it became that the Treasure Coast was mainly the private provider inside the state offices. So definitely, as Brent said, it was a very unusual time and communication wasn't very forthright. Nobody really knew why. We knew we had jobs. We were coming in to help, but nobody understood it. But I believe over time those challenges kind of went away and the fear went away when we were helping and it was making a difference. And so that made a big difference. It got better. Carol: So I'm sure the feds probably wanted to say one or two things about this arrangement. So what do either of you think, Brent, I'll go to you first from a state perspective, if you are able to answer this, what did you guys do to help alleviate federal concern about this arrangement? Because I keep thinking non delegables, you know, in my head. Brent: Sure. Well, that's the big one. And so that is addressed contractually. And I think it's certainly explicit and clear in our current contractual arrangements, which we'll get into. But I would imagine that that had to be addressed right out of the gate because it would be the obvious challenge or something that we would have to deal with. And I think we have done so well. But I think to go back to the federal response, I do understand that RSA had some pretty significant concerns initially, and I speculate that that led to the decision to only enter the three small contracts initially rather than to try to do the whole state. And I understand they were only one year contracts with a possible renewal for two years. So a limited term and very limited geographically to start out. And I think that probably helped to address some of the concerns. Carol: So, Tina, do you have any thoughts back then about the federal concern because you were there, you probably heard a little bit about that. Tina: Sure. Basically what we found or what I saw was that RSA contracted agencies to come in and do quality assurance. We had many, many audits and quality assurance reviews regularly. And what I feel probably alleviated those concerns over time because I was part of them, my cases were pulled for audits and then when I became the supervisor, we were still doing many, many quality assurance desktop audits. And basically once we would get through these audits and they were positive and they could see that we were following processes, we were doing the same work that the state was doing, we were following everything that was laid out in the contract. The audits became less, the quality assurance coming around every few months were less and less. And I believe that just spoke to the kind of work that was happening over time. But there was definitely a lot of concern in the beginning and as Brent said. It started out with short term contracts and now we've gone into more of a three year with three year extensions. And of course, everything is still we're all being we should all be under compliance audits from time to time, but it's more regular now. It's not like it was in the past. Carol: Gotcha. Okay. That helps clear that up. So, Brent, I know I said something about the non-delegables, so how do you address that to ensure that VR remains in control? Because I'm sure our listeners are thinking, all right, but how does that work exactly? Brent: As I mentioned, we clearly set forth the definitions within the contract and sort of address that head on. And early on in the language of the contract, for example, in the purpose of the contract, under brief summary of the nature and purpose of the project, it states, the purpose of this contract is to perform delegable VR services to eligible persons with disabilities in Area two, Area three, Area six and seven. Essentially, we're establishing that right out of the gate we define what those terms mean within the definitions, of course, citing to the applicable regulations and laws. And then most importantly, every unit has an assigned position that is a state employee that we call a counselor analyst, and they have the final signing authority for all work in the unit. So that's really essentially how we address this the non-delegable issue. The Service Source unit supervisor reviews the work first and then it's ultimately reviewed and signed off on by the counselor analyst. And so Tina mentioned our Treasure Coast where we have two counselor analysts based just on the size of that unit and the population there. The counselor analyst reports to our area director in each area around the state and those four areas that have the private units. And so, of course, we always have to document customer choice and form choice and working with private or state staff. I think we do a good job of explaining during our intake process that the services will still be the same and that it should appear the same regardless of which selection a customer makes. As to whether they would prefer to work with our state staff or with Service Source staff. Carol: So that speaks to the question then what steps did you take to integrate staff in the work? And Tina, I'm going to send that to you because you've been there since the very darn start of the whole thing. Tina: Yes, we wanted this to look seamless, and in the beginning I wasn't part of those decisions, but I can see why we did this. And it worked. Basically, our Service Source staff are on the state system, so we have emails, we're included in all the state correspondence. If you were to pull up myself or Brent, we're both in the system, so are all of the staff, Our Service Source staff, we do take our Service Source trainings like you would do for any company that you work for. But then we also, our staff is part of the mandatory state trainings, including ethics and sexual harassment and all the beginning onboarding, because it's important that our staff understand when they're working inside of a state system. There...
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VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Rethinking Agency Organizational Structure- Ideas that work with Dacia Johnson-Oregon Blind
11/11/2022
VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Rethinking Agency Organizational Structure- Ideas that work with Dacia Johnson-Oregon Blind
Today, Dacia Johnson, Executive Director of the Oregon Commission for the Blind, chats with Carol Pankow, about some of the really innovative practices that the Oregon Commission for the Blind has implemented to improve organizational effectiveness and benefit the VR community. Dacia and her team did a lot of work preparing for monitoring and restructuring some critical elements of the organizational structure that has the VR community talking. Join Dacia and Carol in the Manager Minute studio for this timely conversation on championing innovation and high performance in a climate where so many agencies are looking for ways to spend VR funds effectively. VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Rethinking Agency Organizational Structure- Ideas that Work with Dacia Johnson-Oregon Blind {Music} Speaker1: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow. Carol: Well, welcome to the manager minute. Joining me in the studio today is Dacia Johnson, executive director of the Oregon Commission for the Blind. She has been the executive director since 2013 and was the director of the agency's rehabilitation services program prior to that. So Dacia was so good to see you at the VR conference last week. How are things going in Oregon? Dacia: It was great to see you as well, Carol. And things are going well here. I mean, I think like every agency, we have our challenges and opportunities, but certainly we're focused on providing the best services we can to Oregonians who experience vision, loss and just getting at it every day. Carol: Awesome to hear. Well, full disclosure to our listeners, Dacia and I have worked together in both NCSAB and CSVAR and we were new director buddies. Back in 2013, right before the world changed with WIOA in 2014, and I had the good fortune to participate in the Oregon Commission for the Blind Monitoring visit this year and learned a ton of interesting things about the agency. Dacia's undertaken some really cutting edge organizational improvements that will be a benefit to the VR community, and I knew I needed to get her on the program to talk about this. And I think it's also fitting and timely with the state of the national VR program and agencies are looking for ways to effectively spend funds. So let's dig in. So Dacia, can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and the agency? Like what's your background and how did you land at the commission? Dacia: Sure. I started my undergraduate degrees in psychology and so like every undergraduate with a psychology major, I didn't know what I was going to do. And I moved back to a small town in southern Oregon and I got a job with at the time it was a GPA workforce training program, and I loved that job. I did that for a couple of years and what I realized was my favorite part of it was working with at Risk Youth and what that was with youth with disabilities, right? They were kids with significant learning disabilities, kids with psychiatric disabilities. And I just love the work. That job ended and I moved myself to the big city and I started in private rehabilitation. And I realized quickly that the work of private rehabilitation just didn't really fit my values. And so I started working in public vocational rehabilitation while I simultaneously pursued my graduate degree in rehabilitation counseling. I did that at the general agency in Oregon. There's two agencies here, there's the general agency, and then there's the services for the individuals who are blind under what's called the Commission for the Blind, where I currently work. And I was recruited to come here in 2000 and I immediately fell in love with the work. Carol, you know this, but blindness rehabilitation is very holistic. You really have to address the needs of the entire person, starting with skills and adjustment and just helping them kind of redirect their existing skills and new and innovative ways. And I just loved it. I also love the fact that with the blindness organization are oftentimes closer to the work. I love policy, I love meetings. I'm a nerd that way. I love thinking about new programs. But with our agency, you actually get to see people who are going through the rehabilitation process. You get to interact with them. And so it was just the right elevation for me. And I've been here ever since. Carol: I love that. I didn't know that about you. That's a cool way to start. And you're like an old timer now. You've been there, what, 20 going on? 23. Dacia: Been here? Yep, 22 years in August. And for a long time I was the newbie. And so now it is a little bit interesting to be one of the most senior staff people. I will say that I have never not wanted to come to work and to me that's an incredible gift to be able to work doing things that you're passionate about with incredibly committed, passionate rehabilitation professionals, not unlike yourself, Carol, but we just have just a wonderful, service oriented mission. And I love coming to work and I feel incredibly grateful for that opportunity every day. Carol: Yeah, you have a fantastic team. Now, I know a commission is a little bit of a different structure than most people are maybe used to. Can you give us just a few high points and what's different about that? And then also, like, how many people do you guys serve? Dacia: All right. So we have a commission structure. We're grandfathered under the Rehabilitation Act, so we don't have a state rehabilitation council. We have a seven member board that reports directly to the governor. And that board has appointing authority over the executive director. Myself and the majority of those commissioners in Oregon have to be legally blind. And so our structure really ensures that we're focusing in and have crystal clear priorities around the best services possible to Oregonians who are blind or blindness organization. So we provide a combination of vocational rehabilitation services and independent living. Services to individuals with the largest independent living program being the older independent living program. For individuals who are blind. We serve anywhere from 1300 to 1600 folks a year in our vocational rehabilitation program. Last year, I think we served around 650 folks. Carol: Yeah, it gives me a good perspective because I think back at SSB when I left, we were around 800 folks in the VR, and OIB program we were serving about 5000 people. Dacia: Wow. It's incredible. Carol: It's pretty cool. But I'm like you, I love that work and I love being close to the people and seeing what's going on. So I know you and your team did a just a ton of work preparing for that monitoring, but you also did a lot of work in restructuring some critical elements of your organizational structure. Can you tell our listeners what prompted you to think about doing something different with your structure and what are the specific things that you've done. Dacia: On the monitoring piece, I think what I will say about preparing for monitoring is use the tools that are available to us that you, Carol, have developed. So I think that basically you use the checklists that the TAC has created for agencies. It makes a difference, right? So we actually thought we were on the short list for a long time. So we actually had been preparing, I would say, on a quarterly basis, going through the monitoring guide for that particular year and just trying to think through some of the questions. The monitoring guide doesn't change radically year to year. So we just kind of made sure that we were not starting from ground zero once they notified the states that were monitored. And I encourage everyone to do that because it really makes you think about kind of your structure. The other thing is I've been here a long time, and so I think that some of the skills that we all developed in vocational rehabilitation counseling, in terms of assessing skills and abilities and capabilities, I feel like I've applied that to our organization over time. And then I've looked for opportunities to be able to strategically invest in the organization. One of the things in which we're unique is that we actually employed an internal auditor and folks are like, How can a small agency benefit from an internal auditor? Well, I'll tell you, one of the first things that that position did when we hired them was to create some infrastructure around our quality assurance manual auditors, because we wanted that position to be able to actually audit the work they own the process of making sure things were documented in terms of internal controls, policies and procedures, but they actually didn't create the internal control, if that makes sense. They didn't create the policies and procedures. So that position had enough distance that over time they can actually do the internal auditing and testing of the processes to make sure they're in place. But really having one position that directly reports to me that had that full responsibility of making sure that things were clear documented in one place and kind of reflected the organization, I think was critical to us. That position is constantly having activities going on to make sure that our organization is running effectively and efficiently. They also were the lead on the monitoring preparation. It is a massive lift to get prepared for monitoring and go through the process. But we had one point of contact that doesn't do the work of the service delivery and they were able to objectively kind of track our progress and leading up to the monitoring and then led the work for the onsite monitoring itself. And it felt like it ran pretty smoothly to have that structure. So even if you don't have a separate position like we have, I would encourage folks to use that central point of contact ownership model because I think it made our monitoring run fairly smoothly. Carol: Yeah, I thought it was pretty cool because that's Clay's position, correct? Dacia: Yes. Yes. Carol: So if anybody out there, you can't have Clay, But Clay is really awesome. And we were able to get into contact with him before you all went through the monitoring. He had reached out about a couple of things and I was like, What? Like what is this position? And that's why I just want you to say, what did your monitoring team say about this position? Dacia: They were really pleased to see it, particularly on the fiscal side and looking at the way we have that separation and the ability to objectively review information, they were very favorable about the position for sure. Carol: Yeah. In fact, I think they said we've never seen this anywhere else. You are the only agency that has had a position that was developed quite like that, and I thought that was pretty cool. So I guess I didn't realize that Clay had not developed that whole extensive manual that you had. There is a lot of work that went into that. Who did that? Who did all of that? Dacia: He helped kind of with the lift of getting things documented. But each of the programs actually did the identification of the issues because we wanted him to have that autonomy and independence and not creating the actual documentation itself. Before we had dedicated resources, we started the process of creating a quality assurance manual. And what we realize is without dedicated resources to focus on it, it never happened. So the other thing I would encourage folks to do, if you don't have that position to help with the documentation is I basically said and I gave I think three months and I just said, you have to do it by this date. Carol: Oh my gosh, yeah, that's quick. Dacia: And I just said, it's never going to be a good time. And I just set a deadline. I think it was three months. People freaked out a little bit, but the reality is it got done right? And then we built from the foundation. We added once we kind of did a gap analysis of what was missing from that initial documentation list, then Clay helped kind of figure out where we needed to create documentation beyond what that initial lift was. Carol: Well, and I know with the blind agency, it's always unique because we're typically smaller. We don't have a lot of resources. So kind of carving out these sort of positions and making investments in a particular piece of infrastructure like that. You know, it's kind of a deal. It's a big deal to do it. And so taking the funds and kind of making that happen. So had you had that kind of swirling around in your mind for a while? Dacia: I had I mean, like every agency you go through the single audit act experience where you have external auditors. When I first became executive director, there was a significant push to try to make sure that the agency was running effectively and efficiently. And what I quickly realized is you don't know what you don't know, you know, especially like in on the service delivery side, but you have gaps and you're just not going to see them unless you have a focused attention on actually looking for your gaps. And so once I realized the pressure and the expectation to have this particular element be like running the best it could be, then I thought, well, then give me the resources. Right? I advocated for the resources to make sure that we could actually maintain that level of expectations. Carol: Good for you. That's awesome. You also made some investment, though, in your fiscal team. I remember because did you not structure some things in a different way with your fiscal unit as well? Dacia: We did. We actually had some turnover at our chief financial officer level and as I did the exit interview with the candidate that left who loved working for the agency, they indicated like this is impossible work, like you have like the CFO as a small agency wearing all of these hats. But there were so many hats that they were running from one fire to another fire to another fire to another fire. So then we hire a new CFO, and within a couple of months, the new person was like, I feel like I'm running from one fire to another fire to another fire like, All right. So either I listen to these very different professionals with different backgrounds and expertise and say there's too much work, right? So we advocated to add a grant accountant position that had just started actually last December. So not quite a year yet. And the grant accountant position in part is going to be focusing on preparing all of the grant reports and all of that tracking. And then that gives the CFO the opportunity to be able to review that work with some separation to make sure that that work is accurate, that it has all of the required elements in it. We had some very small but annoying financial reporting errors that were recurring that came up on the Single Audit Act audits. And the major barrier for us was the CFO was preparing the report, reviewing their own work and then submitting the report. And there were keying errors, you know, silly things that you just can't double check your own work. It's impossible. Carol: Right? Good for you. Yeah. Because you know, all those single audit act, when you get on that list, there's always a lot of follow up. And I remember back in the day, like our governor's office, I'd have to send quarterly reports like how we're going to resolve this particular finding. They don't like you to have any. So good for you for doing that. So how do you think things are working out since you've made those changes? And have you had any kind of lessons learned along the way so far? Dacia: Yeah, I think that they're working out well. One of the things we're working on now that's still in development is, as we know, our financial management is super complex. So we have to at any one time look at state level appropriations and budgets. At the same time, we need to be managing our match and our maintenance of effort and our Pre-ETS and we have to look at our cash on hand and tracking that and making sure that we don't have federal cash around too long and all of these pieces. And so we're creating with the lead work, being of that new grant account position, some kind of a dashboard that can kind of help us make those types of decisions, like when to switch from one year of Pre-ETS to the next year of Pre-ETS, and when we've met our match and maintenance of effort. And how does that compare with our state appropriation year and making sure that we expend all of our state funds that we have available during that period? And what I'm hoping that will be able to do is as we're trying to make decisions in terms of budget appropriation, grant management decisions around re allotment and all of that stuff, that we have kind of some data intelligence to help us kind of drive those decisions and track it over time. Carol: Well, imagine that data driven decision making, Dacia. Dacia: I know, right? Carol: I think you did a little presentation on that a few years ago somewhere. I kind of seem to remember that was one of your big things you like to think about. Dacia: Yeah, the piece that I would in terms of lessons learned, we're a small agency and we have passionate staff, right? Sometimes I think that I could have probably engaged staff and more often. And as to why are we adding these positions that aren't in the direct service bucket, I think that's a question that still comes up periodically, even though they see the value, but still sometimes they're like, Oh, did we add this? And why didn't we add a counselor or a teacher? No, I don't think you can over communicate the why to staff, even though, again, I think they intellectually see the benefit. But when you add FTE, they really want it to be in the service bucket, the admin stuff. I think they feel like you always have enough, you know. And the truth is, I think that agencies, particularly small agencies under resourced the administrative tasks because there's a certain amount of work that has to happen and it has to happen well, and at the end of the day, if you aren't running your organization well, they're not going to give you extra credit because you've been putting all your resources in the direct service area. They're just going to say that you're not running your organization well. Carol: Yeah, and then that doesn't bode well. I came in too, to that. And if we aren't shipshape financially and we don't have all of that together, then we can't really run the program. Dacia: Yeah. Carol: Don't know what we're doing. So it is always that fine balance because like you say, we're small typically, and when you add that resource over here, people immediately look at that, Oh, sure, you're making, you know, the central office. People are bloated, There's too many people. But boy, in a blind agency, when you're wearing 15 hats, it gets tough. And there has to be that separation for sure. Dacia: Yeah. And Carol, you and Sara have kind of reinforced directors need to know the financial matters. And I think I can't reinforce that enough, like the whole vision of having a grant account and then figuring out this dashboard stuff that came out of me not sleeping right and trying to think like, gosh darn it, I need to have this kind of information available because I'm the one that's worrying about this at the end of the day. Carol: So I hope we didn't make you not sleep. Dacia: Oh, no, not at all. Carol: I know we talk about it a lot, though. So how far away do you think you are from this dashboard? Because I'm sure people are probably pretty interested. Dacia: It's probably about 70% there. Carol: Oh, wow....
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VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: National Disability Employment Awareness Month - See how Self-Employment Serves a Critical Need in Wyoming with Inge Huband and Nicky Harper
10/04/2022
VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: National Disability Employment Awareness Month - See how Self-Employment Serves a Critical Need in Wyoming with Inge Huband and Nicky Harper
Joining Carol Pankow in the studio today is Inge Huband, Program Consultant for the Wyoming Department of Workforce Services Division of Vocational Rehabilitation Small Business and Employment First programs, and Nicky Harper, Vocational Rehabilitation Administrator for Wyoming VR. This year, the National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM) has a theme of Disability: Part of the Equity Equation in recognition of the vital role people with disabilities play in making the nation's workforce diverse and inclusive. For our listeners, Wyoming VR does not participate in the Randolph Sheppard program; however, they have concentrated for almost two decades on their small business program that focuses on self-employment. Learn how this focus has attained over a 50 percent success rating for small businesses through partnerships, creativity, education, and community networking. VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: National Disability Employment Awareness Month - See how Self-Employment Serves a Critical Need in Wyoming with Inge Huband and Nicky Harper {Music} Speaker1: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow. Carol: Well, welcome to the Manager Minute. Joining me in the studio today is Inge Huband, Program Consultant for the Wyoming Department of Workforce Services, Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, Small Business and Employment First Program, and Nicky Harper, Vocational Rehabilitation Administrator for Wyoming VR. And wow, was that a mouthful? So good to have you both. Inge, how are things going in Wyoming? Inge: Oh, they're pretty good. We had a very hot summer. We're looking forward to some cool down here. Carol: Absolutely. And Nicky, how about you? How are things going? Nicky: I am well, Carol, thank you for having us. Life is good in Wyoming. Carol: Excellent. Well, you're some of our favorite people, that's for sure. So this year, the National Disability Employment Awareness Month, or NDEAM, has a theme of disability: Part of the equity equation in recognition of the vital role people with disabilities play in making the nation's workforce diverse and inclusive. So this past year, my colleague Alison Flanagan and I had the opportunity to participate in the Wyoming VR on site monitoring review by RSA. And during the week we spent together, Alison was sitting in the session discussing your small business program in Wyoming and was completely blown away. She told me immediately, She's like, You got to follow up with them and get a podcast together. So for our listeners out there, Wyoming VR does not participate in the Randolph Shepard program. However, they have had a focus for almost two decades on their small business program that focuses on self-employment. The Bureau of Labor Statistics states that over 10% of US workers are self-employed, and self-employed workers also represent many of the country's entrepreneurs who are responsible for creating jobs for other workers. So let's dig in. So I'm really excited about your small business program, and I wanted to talk a little bit more about that. So Nicky, can you give us a little context about Wyoming does not participate in the Randolph Shepard program? Nicky: That is correct, Carol. We don't have a Randolph Shepard program for a couple of reasons. Primarily, incidents of visually impaired individuals is very low. So when the cafeteria programs went away, oh gosh, several years ago, it was set up that funding was coming into vocational rehabilitation. So at that time, my predecessor and I believe the field services administrator took a look at that and said, well, there's still funding coming in. So instead of a cafeteria program, can we still continue to look at the vending program and how can we get some legislation and statutes written so that vending income could be utilized to still support individuals with disabilities wanting to develop small businesses? So instead of doing vending cafeteria with Randolph Shepard, we kind of went a slightly different avenue. Carol: So Wyoming has their own take on this. So you actually have your own legislation that governs what you're doing. Nicky: We do, yes. Carol: Excellent. I was very curious about that. So how does the funding work for this program? Nicky: So the legislation or the statute allows for us to go out for bid for individuals in the communities. They don't necessarily have to be an individual with a disability, but I do believe this score additional points on an RFP, if they have a disability to set up vending machines in state owned buildings. So they set up the vending machines with understanding that a percentage of the earnings come to vocational rehabilitation. So we then use those earnings as match dollars when we set up a small business so that we use federal dollars obviously, and that vending income is used as a non-federal match portion. Carol: Gotcha. Thank you for clearing that up. So do you partner with the Wyoming Small Business Administration? Inge: Not directly. So I would call that an indirect partnership. We put a couple of years. We have partnered with the Wyoming Women's Business Center and they receive part of their funding through the Small Business Administration. So what we have started doing is to refer some of our clients. Not all of them will work for this program. Some of them can be referred with the approved loan amount, and then they will actually have to go through a loan process through the Wyoming Women's Business Center. The amount that DVR has approved for their small business is the loan amount that they're applying for, and we are able to pay that loan and the client will have to provide us with showing that they actually purchase what they have. So that's another layer of responsibility for the clients. It's no longer just gives me money. It's like, Oh no, I have to fill out a loan application and I have to talk to the loan officer and put everything out there and they have to have a. That's account ready. They have to have their legal entity already registered before they can even receive those funds. So it puts everything in another level of reality. And then they have the responsibility of purchasing all the approved items and approved that they did purchase them. And they have to send that also to the Women's Business Center as well as to us. So that's kind of how we keep track of all of that. But it does help with the diverse things that clients need. It's sometimes very difficult for, say, to purchase certain items through the process that we have. And so that makes it a lot easier, a lot more efficient than quicker for the client to obtain those needed items. Carol: I know your state is very you know, you have the rural component. There's sort of a little bit of the bigger city areas and such. But what are some unique challenges that people face in Wyoming with creating a small business? Inge: It is probably infrastructure. Internet sometimes is an issue, just being in very small communities and very rural, having to drive to places and it causes a lot of issues. But as I said, people are very resourceful when they buy into their idea and they see their idea growing from, Oh, here's that concept that I have in my head and through the process of business planning, it becomes a tangible idea of something that really makes sense and we help them really understand, okay, where you're at in this particular situation, does it really make sense to have a ginormous warehouse? For example? Would it not be better to utilize drop shippers or whatever we're considering in that situation? And then the idea grows from this big monstrosity to something small, functional and doable, and the client is able to just move forward with it. And also, I think giving them the future outlook of you can always grow your business, you can always change. And Wyoming has a really great network of support for small business. We work with local economic development chambers. I encourage the clients to work with all of these entities to really get into the nitty gritty of their small business idea and figure things out. So it's not uncommon that I ask clients to do surveys, talk to their community and say, Do they really want this service? Because being online works sometimes, but not all the time. It's difficult. It's a big market out there. So when you have a following in your local community and get started, it's a lot easier to transition online or go into a warehouse. So for example, in a small town here in Wyoming called Buffalo, we have a saddle maker and he was visited by our governor. And because of that, we had another visitor from a local retailer who wants to help him with some free space. And so now he's able to move from his own property into a free rented location down the road. We'll probably have to pay rent, right now it's free and he'll have a little retail location. So what he can offer are smaller items. So he doesn't just rely on saddles and so he's really excited and things are moving. Carol: Well, that sounds like a super smart approach, especially when you talked about having some of the Internet issues that can happen in rural areas too. So you want to have somewhat of a following in that community because people may not be able to get to you online either. That makes some sense. So you talked about this saddle maker. So what are some of the other interesting businesses that have been pursued? Nicky: Oh, my gosh, quite a few. We get really, really creative. And Inge is a really good job with ensuring that the business is viable and they can be successful. The clients have to put together a pretty detailed business plan. The one that I kind of laugh about is we call it the pole dancing business. Carol: Do tell! Inge: This one was a client who just came to me and said, Well, I'm this athletic person. I teach pole dancing. I want to do that as a business. And I wasn't sure if we could do that, being tied to federal funding and all of that. So sure. And I didn't understand the idea of that being just physical exercise and all of that. So there were all these other things with it. But she opened up a studio and a really small town. It worked really well. She had a nice clientele. She was big enough to open a second studio in adjacent small town that worked also well, and then her injury got worse. Unfortunately, she had to sell to local studios. She moved and she's still selling her choreography and her merchandise online. And so that one was a really fun one to work with because it was so out of the ordinary, something different. Nicky: We have done some really cool ones like. On supporting horses for Wyoming that works out. There's a lot of rodeo and that kind of stuff happening, and individuals may not always have the capacity to transport their animals across state lines. So we've done that kind of business and sometimes even to some micro-businesses kind of thing. One that comes to mind that was pretty cool was the latest craze of like essential oils and that kind of business. So we have really supported from large businesses, from mowing companies to moving horses to one was a t shirt company. This guy, he would get this product and then resell it. I think in his second year of business he cleared like 70,000. Well, that was. Carol: Well that is cool though, because you guys have been super creative and it's worked for Wyoming, you know, and what people have needed there, because I know you definitely have a lot of challenges with the geographic nature of your state. Nicky: Absolutely. Carol: Very, very cool. So how do your outcomes look and how did the pandemic impact your customers and their businesses? Inge: So our outcomes on general, when we check our numbers, they're about 50% success rate, which is pretty good because nationwide, when you look at all the small businesses that start in the first year, you have a 90% failure rate. And of those 90% within five years, you have another 50% failure rate of those remaining business. So it's very tough. So we are doing pretty good. The pandemic really didn't do that much to us. I was as busy as before the pandemic actually even busier. People were really hunkering down, thinking, well, what can I do? How can I support myself? And we did a lot throughout the pandemic. So the pandemic itself did not. We're seeing a slowdown right now. That is because there are a lot of jobs available. I believe right now the unemployment is at about 3% in Wyoming. Carol: Oh, excellent. Inge: So there is that natural slowdown that happens with that. So when work is available, micro slows down a little bit. When it's not available, we get really busy. And so we have that here. But yeah, the pandemic itself was a busy time for me. Carol: Good. That's good to hear. So how do you partner with the VR counselor in making all of this happen? Inge: Yeah, so that is a really good relationship. The counselor works with our clients. Sometimes clients get to refer to me right away. Sometimes they have good working with a VR counselor for some time before they even come my way. And then the counselor reaches out. Here's the client, here's what they want to do. So I provide services to our counselors as well as to our clients. I encourage our counselors to contact me if they have a client that has, let's call it a harebrained idea that may not work. So we do research with the client together to figure out is that even a decent idea or these pyramid schemes that people sometimes get involved with. We research stuff like that. So when a counselor isn't sure, I encourage them to contact me. When we're ready, the client gets referred to me and I start working and that looks different for different clients. So sometimes they're very proactive. Other clients, they want their counselors with them. So we just schedule phone calls again, virtual meetings or something to work together and then make sure that the client has all the support that they need. Usually, once the client is comfortable with working with yet another person, they are okay with working with me. That helps lead the process up a little bit because we don't need to coordinate all of our calendars and so we can solve this on that. Again, it depends on the client, but in general, the client can get a bland easy in three months. They have to do financial projections. So at minimum we have to do a one year, month by month financial projection to see what is your projected income, your expenses, what's the bottom line looking like? How much money do you want to take out of that business? Where is all going to go? That's kind of what determines the whole process and everyone is of a different level. So some people you will have to explain everything to them. You have to teach them entrepreneurship, you have to guide them through the process while others come in with some knowledge already. Sometimes I get completed business class before I even have met the individual, and then once a plan is approved, the client goes back to their VR counselor and then they work together on finalizing the business. They start up their business. The VR counselor meets with them regularly to ensure that everything is on par, and if not, I hope that they will contact me and let me in. And that works pretty well that way. Working with the Women's Business Center. Has been really tremendous because that long counseling that they're receiving is just another way to make sure that everything that we try to teach them, try to put into this plan and process is being reinforced and someone else tells them, know some of the same things that we have went through with them already. Carol: So that sounds like a great partnership that you have. Inge: Yeah, it took me a long time to get that build out because outside of vocational rehabilitation, we're considered a brand and to educate those partners, it's not a grant and it's a different kind of process and program and people have different kinds of needs. We need to sometimes slow it down or speed it up, depending on where they are on that continuum, then that's where we need to be. And so that's not always easy. So it took me a long, long time to get through and it took a food truck business who needed a loan, couldn't get a loan through a bank, and the Women's Business Center was able to make a loan. So that client, they finally understood our process. And then I was approached for a contract. We actually entered a contract to make sure that everything is being all the confidentiality and all of that of oversight. And there's information that I cannot share and they cannot share because of lending rules and all of that. So we do have to have all of that information and continually work together. Carol: So how does that work when you close a case? Because I understand that you're opening a case for the consumer in some situations. So how do you determine when you're closing in the case and consider it successful? Nicky: Usually it's part of the business plan. They have to be able to demonstrate self-sufficiency, you know, and sometimes we might support them for a good couple of years just following them along for additional supports, just like a regular rehab closure, so to speak. We want to ensure that they are earning adequately, that they can self-sustain their business, that they don't have any additional supports from the division that they need to sustain business. We usually ask for regular paystubs and that kind of stuff to track that. They are doing well and by the time we are looking at closing the case, they have also established a working relationship and develop their credit through the Women's Business Center, which is where we funnel the funds through, so to speak. So they have established credit and I think each closure is very individualized, just like every case is so individualized, the counselor and the client and Inga works together to ensure that things are going well. The client does believe that they can self-sustain by themselves. And we did have a recent success story, which was really cool. We helped an individual set up a small business. I think it was like car detailing, if I'm not mistaken, and because the division helped him and he became really successful, this client then started hiring other V.R. clients to work for him, which was just really neat. Carol: Wow. That is good stuff right there. Yeah. So what are you most proud of regarding this program? Nicky: Oh, wow. Most proud of. That's a difficult question. I think it's the fact that we have some flexibilities in the program because we have a client who would essentially be eligible for VA services and considered to have a significant disability can potentially qualify. And if it is a viable business idea, we are always open to exploring it. And I think I really like is that we don't just say, okay, here's a set of funds now what do we walk them through that process? And then our recent engagement with the Women's Business Center, where the clients then get the opportunity to start developing their own credit as well, because we all know a lot of individuals with disabilities have challenges in that area where they don't necessarily have good credits or try to borrow in the future becomes difficult. Trying to borrow from the state small business might be challenging, so this really sets the client up for success and we're not necessarily doing for them, we're doing with them. And I think that's what I like to see, that we just don't say, Well, here's a set amount of dollars. Just like our...
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VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Reenvisioning VR Service Delivery with Dee Torgerson- Minnesota General - Meeting People Where They Are At
09/08/2022
VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Reenvisioning VR Service Delivery with Dee Torgerson- Minnesota General - Meeting People Where They Are At
Dee Torgerson, Director of VR General in Minnesota, joins Carol Pankow in the VRTAC-QM Studio to take a close look at VR service delivery through a post-pandemic lens. Dee presented at CSAVR and was part of the National Rehabilitation Leadership Institute (NRLI) that produced a paper titled, "Now is the Time: Advancing Services to Individuals with Disabilities by Reenvisioning VR Services." The pandemic forced VR agencies to offer services in new and flexible ways to meet the evolving needs of individuals with disabilities and employers, and Dee and her team at Minnesota General rose to the occasion. Listen in as Dee talks about bringing her vision to life. Re-envisioning VR Service Delivery with Dee Torgerson- Minnesota General - Meeting People Where They Are At {Music} Speaker: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow. Carol: Well, welcome to the Manager Minute. Joining me in the studio today is Dee Torgerson, Director of VR General in Minnesota. So full disclosure, I have worked with Dee off and on since 2006 and two different agencies and in different capacities. And I've always been in awe of her stellar management skills and she is just an all around good human being. So Dee, thanks for joining me today. How are things going at Minnesota General? Dee: Hey, Carol, you are too kind, but it's great to be with you talking with you today. Things are doing well at Minnesota General right now. We're in a good place. And of course, in Minnesota it's fall. So people are happy like it's the great Minnesota get together at the state fair. It's the Renaissance Festival, Labor Day weekend. People with young families, all the kids go back to school on Tuesday. So parents are ecstatic. So we are happy in Minnesota. Carol: Well, for our listeners out there, you're going to get to hear two Minnesota accents. We laughed. You and I were like, Oh, they're going to get a whole lot of the Long O's today. So buckle, right? So D, you were part of the National Rehabilitation Leadership Institute that's also known as NRLI. And I was reading the paper your team wrote and I caught your presentation at CSAVR. Some of the things you were saying really intrigued me and I wanted to dig in further. Your group's paper was titled Now is the Time Advancing Services to Individuals with Disabilities by Re-envisioning VR Services Delivery. Your group talked about the challenges that started in 2014 with the passage of WIOA and the new requirements like Pre Employment Transition Services, Section 511., There was increased order selection and of course the pandemic was the cherry on the top. So all of this has created the situation where VR agencies must offer services in a new and flexible way to meet the evolving needs of individuals with disabilities and employers. So you had some really interesting things you're undertaking at Minnesota General. And I want to just let's dig in. So can you give the listeners a little perspective about Minnesota general? Like how many people do you serve, how many staff do you have and what's your overall budget? Dee: Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's interesting when we talk about VR, there are two significant time frames. We talk about pre WIOA and post WIOA and now we talk about pre pandemic and post pandemic. So it's like in VR, our world is centered around that time frame, but in Minnesota, so actually I'm coming up on three years as director in Minnesota, General VR. Prior to that I was a regional director. So I've been in the VR program about ten years, and prior to that I've always worked in some type of rehab, private, public nonprofit, had my own business for a while, you know, and at my age now we say over 25 years we don't want to say how long it really is. So it's been a long time. I have been in some type of VR system, but coming up in three years as director, one of the things when I came in as the director to this position in Minnesota general, actually at the time we had sort of this like flat leadership reporting structure. I had about 14 senior leaders reporting. To me, it was interesting. I thought it was pretty unmanageable. One of the things I put into place, it took me two years to get this into place, but I now have an executive leadership team I added two deputy director positions. So one of them many of you probably worked with in the past, she's been with the Federal VR program for lots and lots of years. Chris McVay, she's our Deputy Director of Disability Employment Services. So essentially she oversees all of the field work. And then we had a new person come in to VR as a Deputy Director. She oversees our operations and partnerships. Michele Basham, And many of you will have an opportunity to meet with her coming up. And then another long term person who fills out our executive leadership team is Jennifer Koski, and she oversees our new quality assurance program. She's helped get that up and running, quality assurance and staff development. So Chris came on just less than a year ago. Michele is about six months in. It's a very new structure, so we're still settling into it. But as a director, it's fabulous to have that small, tight knit group that you can really dig into the details and get some things moving with. But a little bit about Minnesota General, we have about 365 staff. If we were fully staffed, we should have close to 400. We have about 50 vacancies which we have had for a very long time. Carol: That's a bunch. Dee: That's a bunch, yes, We're in a similar situation as many other states. And honestly, right now it's a little bit of the perfect storm. We had a state hiring freeze. We really never were able to recover our positions after that. In Minnesota, we have had really low attrition and we didn't have a lot of retirements and then the pandemic hit all of that. Was amplified. We lost one of our strong VR Masters programs in Minnesota, lost one of our pipelines of people coming in. So we're experiencing all of the things many other states have been experiencing for a while, but it's sort of is all hitting us at once. So it's something I could talk about a little bit more later. But we're in a staffing crisis just like everyone else. Around the country in 2019. So again, pre-pandemic, we served about 16,000 people in Minnesota. This past year, the pandemic hit that decrease just like others had seen in 2022 program year. We served about 13,000. We are quickly edging up to close to. I expect that we will meet or surpass that 16,000 a month. In years past, we've served up to 18,000 folks. Carol: Wow. Good on you. That's great. That's moving up. Is it changing, though, the group that's coming back in, is it more younger folk or what? Dee: Yeah, it's changing. So we've seen sort of this gradual picking up of students that were serving. I would say it's gone from 40%, 50% recent years. Last couple of years, we've seen about 60% of who we serve are students. That's in addition to the pre potentially eligible that we're serving. And I'll tell you the new trend, we were just looking at our new applications, 75% of our new applications are students. Carol: I mean, we've had a significant focus since, again, WIOA on serving those students. So Wow. That's significant. Dee: in many ways it's not surprising, but there are a lot of needs, especially coming out of the pandemic. Carol: So definitely you've been talking about kind of your pandemic numbers pre and post. So I'm sure too that the upswing in the students with schools being back and all of that and not just online, I'm sure all of that's played into those students coming back up. Dee: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I just wanted to comment real quickly about our budget. We have a actually a very healthy budget. In the past, we've had a lack of resources. We've had categories closed and now we have a lot of money, but I don't have staffing. So we've always had order of selection for many years. For a few years we had all categories closed for many years, like over ten years we had all but one category closed. In 2020. We were able to open up three or four categories. We still have our fourth category closed, which is those who don't have any functional limitations, the funding to open that up, but I don't have the staffing to open that up. So that's our situation right now. But we're sitting we have a healthy budget right now. We're budget of about 71 million. Carol: Oh, wow. Good on you. Yeah, I didn't remember it being that big. That is big. Dee: Yeah, we got re-allotment. We got everything. We asked for it. There's a lot of money available. As many of you know, our program income with the ticket to work, we earn nearly $6 million in program income, which is the most we've ever earned. And then, of course, we all got a bit of a bump in our 110 awards as well. Carol: Yeah, pretty incredible. Dee: And we have a healthy state match, which we're blessed to have. Carol: Yeah, we've always been fortunate in Minnesota with that state match for sure. I know not all states have enjoyed that same benefit. That's just been a blessing to have that. Dee: Right. Carol: I know your group at NRLI really did a nice job outlining the current challenges facing VR. Can you talk more about those challenges that were outlined in that paper as it relates to Minnesota General? Dee: Yeah, I can go a little more in depth at that. Actually, we wrote the paper. I was just looking back at the date. It was in October of 2021, so it's already been a year ago. So when I look at the challenges at the time, they're much different than the challenges we face right now. But they were the precipitous of us writing this paper and diving into that and really working on how do we re-envision across our nation the VR service delivery system. So I'll talk about what those challenges were at the time and perhaps talk a little bit about where we are right now. Certainly the challenges. So as October 2021, we were still in the pandemic talking about what are things going to look like when we're coming out of the pandemic? How are we going to rebuild our system? We had, I think, as others have seen, to a sharp decrease, certainly a new applications. Many of the people who were already in our caseloads, we were serving, they're like, you know, I'm just going to wait and see how things turn out. I'm not ready to get out into the environment and work right now. So we had a lot of cases on hold. And of course, as you all know, the schools were in turmoil. So there weren't a lot of I mean, people just weren't able to focus on our services. They're just trying to keep students educated at the time and that really was the focus. Carol: Yeah, absolutely. Dee: Yeah. And so we because we've always had at least 50% or more of our services going to students. We had invested in technologies including laptops and cell phones and some other things for those. So about half of our staff in Minnesota were already equipped with many of those mobile devices and trained on them, but half were not. So that was the challenge, just getting all of the technologies available. I think everybody experienced this. It was hard just to get the equipment and then training people to use that equipment and all of the new software’s and making shifts and the policies and learning about electronic signatures and implementing all of that. So it's a steep learning curve. And, you know, it's not just about getting that equipment out there. You have to have somebody managing all that, managing those assets, helping to do the training, helping to get the equipment in people's hands. Fortunately, I had a great team working on that. We were able to get those technologies out to the other half of all of our staff pretty quickly while we were all working remote. Carol: Good for you. I know some states said they had to send staff home with their desktops. like it was just a nightmare, getting that networked through. So I wondered how that went, because we all know sometimes that I.T. purchasing can take a hot minute. Dee: Yeah. And we did a little bit of that, too, with desktops. Luckily, we didn't have to do a lot of that. We did a little bit of it. I remember the day so clearly it was a Friday afternoon. Y'all got to be out and you have to set up everybody and they need to be working in their home by Monday at noon. Ok, I mean, you know, and we did it and we ramp up and it was bumpy. It certainly was bumpy in the beginning. But now we're in a really good place with that. Lots of technologies we built electronic signatures and other new policies and ways of doing the work into our systems. So I think one or the other significant challenges in Minnesota is we VR general in Minnesota. We were heavily embedded into our one stop systems like for many years. There was a big effort about 20 years ago I think maybe more to embed., many people still talk about it. Remember that, to embed us into those one stop systems. So in Minnesota we have 18 comprehensive sites, but we have over 50 locations all across the state and we were in about 40 of those locations. And again, I would say VR, like we had the most staff, we had the most space, we were paying the most money, we were heavily supporting those physical locations. So when we were all out teleworking and we're like, there's a lot of things changing. We need to do this differently. We need to shrink our space. We need to have people working in a hybrid environment. People need to get out in the community and meet people where they're at. So we knew that would include, as our leases expired, reexamining our physical footprint. And that was no easy task to take on because of sort of how the system was set up in Minnesota. And frankly, we couldn't have done it without our broader agency support in doing that work. So we did a lot of prep work, we did talking points. We met with all of our workforce development partners. And I won't say that it went really smooth because they didn't like the even though the message made sense and we were doing the right thing, they didn't like the message and they weren't ready to make those same changes that we were moving ahead with. So it was bumpy, but it has settled down a little bit. We've actually vacated only about seven sites across the state. We're still in about 30 different sites, but we continue to reevaluate that. And now we're finally a year into this, starting to hear some of those workforce development partners say, you know, we get that vision. We're looking at shifting services and models also. But it's taken a year of very intensive strategic work to get to that point. Wow. That's significant. Well, it's been tough because that was a very political situation, too, in Minnesota, Dee: very political. We had to give our governor's office a heads up. There was letters and phone calls to our commissioner and governor. We knew that would happen. So we were able to give them a heads up with that. But that still made it really difficult. So it was absolutely very political. I think the other when I'm thinking about challenges at the time, as many of you know, in the midst of the pandemic, we had the George Floyd murders and civil unrest, much of which originated in Minneapolis. And that certainly was impactful to a lot of what we've done. We also have reports in Minnesota just about the inequities in employment. We're doing great. We have the best unemployment rate in the nation. However, there is absolute definite inequities in that employment rate when you're looking at people from other cultures and people of diverse backgrounds. So that's been also a huge focus area for us in Minnesota, in our agency overall and within VRS. And we had to really think about those underserved communities. And how are we reaching out to them? And one of the things we know is that they don't just stumble into a one stop center. We have a new American team that we're working with, a lot of those different cultures. They're not trusting of government and government locations. So we knew that we had to get out in the communities. We had to meet people where they were comfortable in order to make a difference in that. So that was a huge kind of incentive or motivator reason why we wanted to do that. Carol: We learned from you with your new Americans team. I know when I was at the blind agency, definitely we had met with your team and took some really valuable lessons to help us as we were working with our specific group of folks. So they were spot on good people. Dee: So that was a huge part of it. And then of course, Minnesota is right in line with all of the federal data about the gradual decreasing enrollments, and we are decreasing outcomes, all of those things. And it's like we can't keep doing what we've been doing because we're going to get more of the same. We have to change some things up and we have to do some things differently. And in VR and the federal program, there's such a focus on informed choice. Yet we never gave people a choice of how, when, where they receive services like you come in at this timeslot Monday through Friday. Actually, typically this was more like two days a week between the hours of eight and 4:30. You got to show up at my office and you got to get there. And we live in Minnesota and I'm telling you, Minnesota in January, it is brutal. I mean, thinking about the physical barriers that people have to go through, we serve, most of whom we serve are people with mental health challenges. That's been consistent over the years. It's still remains true. So we're working with people who have anxiety disorders and all sorts of mental health disorders that are already barriers to them getting out, navigating the landscape, finding transportation. We're trying to serve people who don't have resources. They don't have transportation ways to get to our offices. Those are issues that we had to find a different way to address that. Carol: Well, knowing you, I love that you like to reflect and you're so great at laying out a vision. So what is that vision you have for service delivery for Minnesota General? Dee: You know, Carol, I was thinking back to you and I worked at a previous agency together many, many, many, many years ago. And I think both of us have always had a passion for customer service. I came from private industry nonprofits where you had to focus on that or you could not be successful, or if you ran your own business, that has to be at the forefront of everything you do or you're going to fail. And I felt like that was sort of missing in VR. Like we got so caught up in all the other things and processes and things we forget about the person that we're serving. And in Minnesota, we actually had implemented a huge strategy around providing person centered services. Now most people in VR and I will tell you, most people in general VR said, I already do that. That is not true.. Carol: It wasn't Necessarily true Dee: Because sometimes we get caught up and all of these other things. So when we were even in a previous agency, I don't remember the name of the video, but you implemented that because again, we're trying to get people to focus on the customer. It's the fish video philosophy. Carol: Fish philosophy. Yeah. And I was doing that whole how we could provide good customer service even though we're the government. I did that training all over. In fact, I brought it to SSB, I did it there and I have done it actually since in my AT work as well. Oh funny. Dee: And that's just I mean,...
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VRTAC-QM Manager Minute - Listen to VR Legend RoseAnn Ashby, with her VR Reflections- Looking Back and Looking Forward
08/08/2022
VRTAC-QM Manager Minute - Listen to VR Legend RoseAnn Ashby, with her VR Reflections- Looking Back and Looking Forward
RoseAnn retired from being the Chief of the Technical Assistance Unit at RSA in 2021. She talks about significant changes that shaped what VR is today, including independent living, informed choice and the impact of technology. RoseAnn elaborates on areas that VR is doing well, and areas VR can improve upon moving forward. RoseAnn is currently contracting with VRTAC-QM, and you can find her work on Long COVID on the web at . VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Listen to VR Legend RoseAnn Ashby, with her VR Reflections- Looking Back and Looking Forward {Music} Speaker1: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow. Carol: Welcome to the Manager Minute. Joining me in the studio today is RoseAnn Ashby, former Fed and part of the RSA team for 34 years. RoseAnn, I have to say, you are legendary. Everybody knows and respects RoseAnn. And for those of you newer to VR, RoseAnn started with RSA back in 1987, and she's supervised a number of units during her tenure there, including the Technical Assistance Unit, the Training Programs Unit, RSA Policy Unit, and the basic VR program unit. So RoseAnn, you retired from being the chief of the Technical Assistance Unit at RSA in 2021. And I have to say, wowsers, I think you've done it all at RSA except for maybe the fiscal unit. RoseAnn: That's right. They keep me away from the fiscal unit, Carol. Carol: I love it. I love it. So, RoseAnn, how are things going in retirement or should I say semi-retirement as you're helping us out on the VRTAC-QM with some contract work? RoseAnn: Well, I'm loving my retirement. I will say it's very much less stress than I had when I was working. But I'm looking for ways to be engaged. And of course, I am enjoying my work with the center. I particularly love seeing my work on the website. That for me is really gratifying, that's for sure, and I hope to be doing some additional travel in the fall. You know, COVID has kind of crimped my style a little bit, but I'm looking forward to some opportunities there and some other volunteer opportunities. But I am loving retirement. Carol: Good for you. Good for you. Well, we're loving seeing your work on the website, too, because there's nothing worse when we have coming soon. You know, we're going to be done with two years here in a minute. So we're like, yeah, we got to get this filled in. You have been just a big, big help to us. So, RoseAnn, I love that you said you're looking forward to fall, too, and getting to do some fun, travel and things, because I have always loved this month of August and this is the goofy part of me. Ever since I've been little. I like the smell in the air. I like how I can tell summer's ending and fall starting. I love that whole getting ready for school. And even when I was working at State Services for the Blind, I loved our planning. We did over summer and coming into fall for the new school year, we would do our Pre-ETS blueprint. And so I was sitting back and thinking about podcast and I thought, you know what? I want to do something where we can do some reflections with you because you have over three decades of experience in VR and you've seen so many changes. I thought it would be a fun opportunity to kind of reflect back and look forward. So RoseAnn, why don't you tell our listeners a little bit more about yourself and your background and how you got into VR in the first place? RoseAnn: Okay. Thanks, Carol. So before I went to RSA, I was in the Independent Living Center in Miami, Florida. I was the assistant director there. I grew up in Ohio. I grew up in Canton, which is a little it used to be a factory town. My family was working class, but they always valued education. And I am a person with a disability. I am blind. And my mother, I credit my mother with really pushing hard to fight for mainstreamed education for me. Before that was popular before we had the laws that we have today. That's kind of my background in a nutshell. I went to college in Oberlin, Ohio, and I have a master's degree from the University of Miami in Florida. Carol: Good for you. So what intrigued you about RSA? What do you think about work? Because did you have to move to D.C.? RoseAnn: I did. I did. You know, I had worked at an independent living center doing direct services, advocacy, that kind of thing. And I just felt like if I could help influence some policies, that would be so terrific. And actually, one of the women who monitored our center told me about job openings there. And so in 1987, they were trying to bring on in RSA more people with disabilities. And that's how I got in. Carol: very cool. And living in D.C., I just I have a love for DC. I love when the plane lands. I love everything about it. RoseAnn: I do too. Carol: Yeah. And that's exciting, being able to influence policy. So RoseAnn, and I know you came from that independent living side of services, how do you feel like that independent living movement has influenced VR? RoseAnn: So as folks probably know, the independent living movement puts the consumer in control. The consumer is empowered to kind of control their services and their outcomes. Grew out of the civil rights movement and the feminist movement in the sixties and seventies. And we in VR used to have custodial attitudes that had to change because it used to be that counselors knew best what was good for people with disabilities. Well, after independent living came along, that was no longer true. For instance, in 1973, the concept of the IWR P, which is the predecessor to the IPE, came along. Folks with disabilities were partners with counsel. In determining their plan. And then in 92, of course, we had the introduction of informed choice throughout the VR process and in 2014 we had amendments that brought in the concept of maximizing employment, advancing and employment. So I think independent living needs to be given credit for really changing the scope of VR and how VR Counselors relate to people with disabilities. Carol: I love that I sometimes help Maureen Maguire Kuletz from our team do a session for her grad students around self-advocacy. And I love looking back to those early days. You know, you go in the sixties, there's a lot of cool stuff that came out of that and it has really influenced and shaped what's happening in the world today, and that is amazing. So you've got to see that all. RoseAnn: Absolutely. Carol: RoseAnn, what do you think has been a real game changer in VR over the years? RoseAnn: Well, one of the things I like to talk about as a game changer and there's probably many, but the one thing that occurs to me is technology and the advancement of technology and how that has opened up so many opportunities to people with disabilities that would just never have been there before. I remember typing on a typewriter a long time ago and having someone correct my typos. And now of course, with Jaws Screen Reader, I can do all that work myself. In fact, I edit other people's work and it is just so liberating. And that's just one very, very small example. All of the smartphones and tablets that are accessible right out of the box, that is so exciting for folks with disabilities. Now, of course, I'm most familiar with technology for blind people, but deaf folks now have video interpreting. They can live in the middle of a very rural place, and as long as they have Internet, they can get interpreters to help them facilitate their communication. And folks with physical disabilities, even very significant physical disabilities, have assistive technology to help them with their computers and to be independent at home and at work. I just cannot say enough. I think this has opened up tremendous career opportunities for people. Carol: Yeah, I agree with that. On that technology, I think about when I was at State Services for the Blind, even just during my tenure there looking at equipment we bought early on. And then in the end you kind of want, hey, the iPhone does almost everything and there are a million awesome apps that are folks were downloading and going, Hey, we just need this. I don't need a bunch of other equipment, I just need a phone and this app and I'm good to go. I think that's cool. And for those young people out there, yes, typewriters. I remember typing master's papers and we had one line that could go back and correct. Otherwise we were using correct tape. RoseAnn: Yes. Carole: So, yeah. For those young people who have no idea what we're talking about, it's true. They can be grateful that there's been that advancement. So along with that kind of changes in technology, of course, what do you think is different about the expectations the newer, younger customers have as they access VR? RoseAnn: Well, I think it's very exciting. So first of all, we've got to realize that young people were raised in a post ADA world. The ADA passed in 1990. So they expect things to be accessible. They expect services, they expect facilities to be accessible. They don't know that they shouldn't have those expectations. I find it's so gratifying to see young people with such pride and self-confidence. They demand services. They want everything right now. You know, we talked about this before, Carol, with Amazon. Amazon has raised people's expectations that they should expect their products to be delivered immediately. And I think young people particularly want the VR to reach out to them and to serve them quickly. And that's just not happening. I know we're doing some work on some modules that will be posting soon on rapid engagement, and that's just very exciting to me. Carol: Yeah, I'm glad you made that plug for our rapid engagement series. So for our listeners, we are working on a really cool series that should come out and August and into September where we're going to talk about rapid engagement and some of the practices that could help you in VR to really more quickly engage with folks and hopefully then leads to better outcomes. And we're starting to see some really fun results from around the country. Four states that have entered into that. I know I'm working on a bathroom remodel right now and I just laughed because I was trying to order something off of Amazon and I thought, the contractor goes, well, it should be here by overnight tonight. But no, I have to wait four days. I'm like, What's wrong with that? RoseAnn: That's right. Carol: Oh, my gosh. So how do you those expectations that folks have now fit in with consumer choice and informed choice? RoseAnn: Let me just talk a little bit about VR. And their role. I see the counselor as facilitating the dreams of people with disabilities. The counselor and the person with a disability are partners, and this is maybe new for some people or different kind of concept. People with disabilities have a right to try to reach goals that they want to reach. A good counselor can help them look at what's realistic. They can help them look at how different choices will have different consequences. But we can develop in VR interim objectives for somebody. For instance, if they pass a certain course, then they can go on to another course or the fall program. People with disabilities have a right to fail. We often learn more from our failures than from our successes, and I do see this whole concept of informed choice just playing into all of this that counselors need to honor that, respect that and support it. Carol: I like that you said that learning from failure. I remember back to a parent when we were working with Pre-ETS students and they had that realization. They're like, I was trying so hard to protect my child from ever experiencing that failure, but they had this aha moment and we saw it in them and they went, You know what? We have to let them fail, just like we do our other children. Now, I love that you said that, Rosanne, you've talked to me before about Jo-Ann Wilson. She was the former RSA commissioner, and she had a whole philosophy about raising expectations. Can you tell us about that? RoseAnn: Yes, absolutely. I love Joanne. I think she is a fantastic person and I really admire her. Honestly, she has never let anything get in the way of her doing what she wants to do. She travels extensively. She raised five kids. She headed up the rehab center in Louisiana before she became a commissioner. And she was a tireless advocate for people with disabilities. But one of the things that she always would talk about is one of our major barriers to success is low expectations. And she meant low expectations that people with disabilities have for themselves, low expectations that their families have for them, and low expectations that service providers have. And she would always talk about how we can just raise expectations. We would do so much to help people advance in their goals. Carol: Those are wise words for today. They really are. They ring true even now. I think there's that soft bigotry of low expectations that still hangs around. Absolutely. RoseAnn: Yeah. Carol: So, RoseAnn, what are your thoughts about disability and poverty and how could we better address this? RoseAnn: Well, unfortunately, you know, I don't have the exact data, but I do know that the percentage of individuals with disabilities living in poverty is higher than for the general population. I really think that the RSA's emphasis on good paying jobs is the key. It's not enough for someone to be placed in a minimum wage job or a job that just supplements SSI. I mean, obviously folks have choice about this. We need to be finding better jobs for people. Folks with disabilities have the same dreams as everyone else. They want to raise their families. They want to be active in their community. They want to travel, they want to have fun. And you can't do that if you don't have a good income. I think VR needs to work hard with employers to help them understand that someone with a disability can perform a job competently and as well or better than folks without disabilities. Unfortunately, Carol, there is still stigma or attitudinal barriers in our society. Some employers don't understand that folks with disabilities can be productive. And this is changing. But those barriers are still real. And I think VR needs to work on that. Carol: Oh, you're dead on on that. I'm really hoping actually the one bright lining out of this pandemic is that it's been proven now that people working remotely, it's worked. I mean, it works really well, which can help individuals with disabilities who may have transportation barriers and other things being able to get into some good employment and employers being less critical about are they going to be able to do the job and giving them a shot for doing that and working from home. So I'm at least hoping I'm hopeful that that will prove to be true. RoseAnn: I am, too. I think we have more flexibility now in our thinking than we did before the pandemic. And that's key because when we talk about accommodating somebody with a disability, sometimes it's just a matter of like restructuring a job a little bit or whatever. But I think that kind of like let's make it work no matter what. Carol: Absolutely. So, RoseAnn, what do you think are things that VR is doing really well? And where do you think maybe we're missing the mark A little bit? RoseAnn: I. First want to say that VR is a great program and I think we need to own that. There's hardly anything that cannot be provided to an individual with a disability if it's related to their employment outcome. We've got a great program to work with. I think it's exciting that VR agencies are beginning to really analyze their performance. That's one of the things I do think we're beginning to do well. I think another thing is that we have very dedicated counselors. It sure isn't the money that keeps them in the field. Right. But they're dedicated and that's wonderful. A few challenges or things that I think maybe could be better. I would love to see agencies work on getting more financial compensation for counselors. I think unfortunately, you know, we have a high turnover rate and if we paid people better, that would really help to keep them. In terms of the VR process, we allow the process to control us. We need to look at outcomes. The process in VR is good because it makes sure that people with disabilities are being treated fairly and equitably. It ensures that all the regulatory requirements are met. But that's not the end in itself. That's not what we're really all about. We're about outcomes and we need to focus our work on outcomes. Another thing I just wanted to mention, I don't think our agencies sometimes reward people on the staff who are creative and think outside the box, you know? And then the last thing I would say is we've often heard that VR is the best kept secret, but why the heck are we a best kept secret? We should be out there waiting to tell people what we do, to tell folks with disabilities, employers, other service providers, what we can offer because we are a tremendous resource. And that's an area where I think we can, we can improve. Carol: I agree on that 100%. I know when I interviewed at State Services for the Blind, the director at the time told me, yeah, we're, you know, we're the best kept secret. I still remember that. And I remember telling staff when I got to the agency, I'm like, I don't want to be the best kept secret. We need to have people come in the door. And I love that we've got some agencies out now doing some cool things. I know David D'Angelo from Mass Commission for the Blind, he did a whole PSA campaign and it really impacted his numbers. He was, I think, one of the few programs during the pandemic, like their numbers stayed up. He wasn't losing tons of people. RoseAnn: That's great. Yeah. Carol: He made a big effort. And I know other folks have really been looking into that same kind of thinking, being able to get the word out so people can come in and find us. So do you have any ideas on how VR can shore up those areas where we might be missing the mark? RoseAnn: Well, okay, so just to kind of continue along the same vein I was just talking about, first of all, I think it's really unfortunate that we lost our in-service training grants because of high staff turnover. We really need those training dollars. And I know, of course, agencies can spend their Title One funds on training. I'm sure they do. But I wish we had that dedicated funding source. if we had, I know there's a lot of training available online for counselors and maybe there'd be a way to provide incentives for people completing the training. Also, maybe some incentives for counselors who develop relationships with service providers. You know, we need our partners, Carol, to provide supports to people with disabilities that VR doesn't provide or can't provide. And so if we had folks going out and making contacts in the community and developing partnerships, I think they should be rewarded for that effort. I also think job development, that is a tough skill. It's a different set of skills than most counselors have, that's for sure. And we need dedicated folks to meet with employers and become liaisons with them and really develop jobs for folks. I mean, it is not sufficient to just give a person with a disability a link to Indeed a couple of job openings or whatever. You know, that's not what I'm talking about. I think we need to do some targeted job development more than we do. Carol: Yeah, I couldn't agree more on that....
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VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Moving the Employment Needle to Quality - Learn How the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission has Used Engagement and Partnership to Pave the Path to Quality Employment
07/11/2022
VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Moving the Employment Needle to Quality - Learn How the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission has Used Engagement and Partnership to Pave the Path to Quality Employment
Joining Carol Pankow in the studio today is Toni Wolf, Commissioner of the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission (MRC) since 2017. Toni leads her agency with the belief, "If the system isn't enhancing the quality of life for the individual, we at MRC must change the system." Toni explains how MRC has developed a culture of engagement with customers to build trust and make space for the conversation about what is possible. Find out how the focus on engagement and partnerships with the Department of Mental Health and the Department of Transitional Assistance is moving the employment needle to quality. You can find out more about VRTAC-QM on the web at: VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Moving the Employment Needle to Quality - Learn How the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission has Used Engagement and Partnership to Pave the Path to Quality Employment {Music} Speaker: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management. Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host, Carol Pankow. Carol: Well, welcome to the manager minute. Joining me in studio today is Toni Wolfe, commissioner of the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission since 2017. Toni has a rich history in the mental health arena and is leading her agency with the belief if the system isn't enhancing the quality of life for the individual, we at MRC must change the system. So, Toni, how are things going in Massachusetts? Toni: Well, you know, first of all, I'm really proud of representing Massachusetts today. So thank you, Carol, for having us here. And Massachusetts is thriving. I mean, like everywhere across the country, there are enormous amount of job opportunities. And so I feel like it's our time. It's our time with people with disabilities. Inclusivity is the buzzword. People are really embracing it. They're really believing in it. And that includes people with disabilities. Carol: Well, I'm glad to hear that. So, Toni, I don't know if you remember back, but I had the good fortune of meeting you back in 2017 when you were attending your very first CSVAR conference. And we chatted over lunch and you were getting your feet wet and now you've been at it for five years. I'd say you're probably one of the more seasoned VR leaders today. We've had such a turnover in the field these past eight years, so it's been pretty unbelievable. But it's awesome to see the things that you've been digging in and making so many enhancements to your agency, and people are definitely buzzing about the things happening in Massachusetts. So I wanted to focus our conversation today on the quality outcomes that you're seeing now. I know it didn't just happen by accident, and I'd like to unpack what went into the work you did with your agency. So can you give our listeners a little bit of perspective about MRC, like how many individuals you serve, kind of the number of staff you have, and any other facts that might help paint a picture of your agency? Toni: Sure, I'd be happy to. Massachusetts is a small state compared to other states in the country. We have about 800 employees. We serve currently 15,000 people in VR. Now that used to be 22,000 before COVID. And that's true, I think for all the agencies right now we're seeing a decline, but we are also very eager to increase that number in addition to our VR services, which right now is about 57 million, we also have a very robust community living division, serving same number of people and actually increasing the dollars with federal dollars as well. So we're a little bit about 63 million in our community living division. And then we also manage and support Disability Determination Division that's funded obviously by SSA. So that gives you a little bit of a perspective of MRC, Mass Rehab Commission. Carol: Yeah, I had no idea. You said you're small, but you're a lot bigger than I thought you were. That is awesome. So you had mentioned to me when we visited earlier that you're really focused on looking at quality jobs that can provide a career pathway for individuals. So what's that look like in the sectors that you're seeing in Massachusetts? Toni: Well, I think, number one, we're really focusing a lot on cybersecurity. Those are positions that are starting salary is 65 and up. And we really want to help people really advance their career opportunities. So that also meant a longer training program because obviously it requires that kind of knowledge base working with the community colleges, working with our staff, working with the individual people are really seeing the value of cybersecurity and the job offerings are unbelievable. So again, there's a huge opportunity there. We're also seeing things like STEM positions, anything that's related to technology. And Massachusetts is really fortunate that we're at this hub right where we have amazing employer partners. So it really is an opportunity to really help people advance. And that's really what it's about. It's about mobility. You may not start in the job. That is exactly the job you want or the rate that you want, but does it give you the opportunity to have mobility? And that's what we're looking at. Carol: So how is that impacted your data focusing on these different sectors? Have you started to see some changes in your data? Toni: Well, we're definitely seeing in terms of higher wages now, I would love to say we want to see more of that, which is definitely true. We're also seeing that internships, apprenticeship programs are really the way to go on, not to say that people should not have a four year education opportunity, but we're really seeing short term training opportunities that gets people into the door with employers, then gives people the mobility access that they need. Carol: I love that you said that because I think internships and apprenticeships we have not been very good at in VR. I mean, I don't think it's so good for a long time and I'm really glad WIOA has put a focus on that as well. And I think society as a whole has put sort of this, you know, the prestige around this four year degree or you've got your masters in, they're forgetting all these awesome occupations where you can have an internship or apprenticeship, you know, and get into a certain position and we're missing the boat, like making that somehow seamless because those are crazy careers. Like, I have a plumber at my house right now and you go, Those people are making a lot of money. It's not like five bucks an hour or so. Toni: Well, and it's also relying on the resources of the employer. Employers really are eager to have people come in to the door and really support them and also really advance them so that they can keep a good employee. So it's really about maximizing not only the VR resources, but the employer resources with internships and apprenticeships and also helping people explore what's out there. Know there are positions that we've never heard of before that didn't even exist three years, five years ago. They exist today. So let's really help people think about what's out there. Carol: Yeah, I think the pandemic opened up a whole new world to what we learned, what was possible from all of that. Right now, I know this idea of engagement has been really important to you. Can you tell us about the strategies that you have developed around engagement? Toni: So this is very hot and mass rehab. So what we saw was that we missed people in the beginning steps, right? That we looked at our data and looked at the statuses and what was happening and how we lost people. And engagement means before you even talk about employment, you engage the individual to say, I'm here, let's think about what's possible. All right. And we spent a lot of time and we're using a lot of state resources to make sure that we are giving employees the opportunity to engage in individual. What that means is building a relationship, connecting with them, going where they are not always making sure that the individual comes to us. So that could be at a residential program, that could be at a community setting, that could be someone's library or natural community. It's really, again, going where they are or where they feel comfortable and engaging. And what we're seeing is, is that that opportunity allows people to begin to build a trusting relationship, to then be able to talk about work, talk about what's next, give you the opportunity to think about, am I really interested in employment? Maybe I could be right, because we're seeing people so hesitant right now, so even more so than ever, it really requires engagement. Carol: So how did that happen with the staff? I know some other states have been talking with staff, have been a little hesitant about going out and meeting people, especially meeting people in their homes or things like that. But even meeting people in the community, folks have been worried about data privacy and all different things. How did you work with staff to make all this happen? Toni: Well, we started first with one of our programs, which is a partnership with the Department of Mental Health. And we hired people that what we're calling mental health specialists, mental health rehab staff who really enjoy that population and understand the challenges and the strengths of people with mental health conditions. And we set up front, you're going where they are, you're going in the community residence, you're going. So that really set the tone automatically. Let me just say that. And also, we talked about engagement. What we did was we kind of looked at some of the principles we really want to instill throughout MRC and let's do it on a small scale basis. So we have a $4 million project with a Department of Mental Health. We have about 25 counselors, and they are going in the community settings, they're going in the residential programs, they're going in clinics. All right. They're going where consumers are, right, where it's not such an effort to engage people. And we also are making sure that our counselors are working within a team, that it's wonderful that VR has traditionally been one on one. But what we know also is that people really thrive when there are more resources at the table. So not just think about the person in the VR lens, but think of the whole person. Toni: So is their home safe? All right. Do they have food on the table? All right. Can they think about work? Can they think about going on an internship? What about their transportation? How can we help people? So again, it's not only just working with the individual, but working with other resources so that people can really thrive on their goals. So that's when we started that. And then we expand it to a different partnership, which is our Department of Transitional Assistance Partnership. So again, we made sure that people learned and heard the value of going where the consumer is. And I have to say now what we're calling via are throughout the agency, people are realizing that that office is not the Pandora's. We can open that up. Right? We don't have to be glued to the door. And there was a myth that in VR for some of our counselors that felt like if an individual went to the office, that meant that that was kind of a test. They were really committed. Right. We know that's not true. There's lots of reasons why people don't make appointments. Right. It doesn't mean that they're any less interested in achieving their goal. So I do think in this, a remote arena that we've all experienced, it also is opening up enormous opportunities. Carol: Yeah, you are spot on on that. I remember the whole test concept. If they get there and think about Minnesota like Winter and there maybe someone is also in a wheelchair and they're trying to navigate buses and then trying to get through our parking lot. That's not plowed very well. And then they're late. And then the counselor is thinking, wow, they weren't very committed to getting here. It just probably took him 2 hours to get here. So we don't have to put people through kind of through the paces. I know you're talking about this partnership with mental health. And of course, you've had that long, rich history in the mental health arena. So I wasn't surprised that you were engaging in partnering with your Department of Mental Health. How is that relationship blossomed over these last five years? Have there been any things you've been doing specifically to sort of cultivate that? Toni: Yeah. So we first created a vision statement as a group so that we wanted to make sure this was a long term historical perspective. We wanted a vision statement. We wanted to make sure both agencies were committed short term and long term to really work with people with mental health conditions. We also on a monthly basis, even today, this project has been going on for four years. We look at the key performance indicators. All right, how are we doing? What is the say? What does this actually mean? Maybe we need to go back and dig into the data to see if there are other things that we can tweak. So it is really a partnership that we're doing with EMH and with MRC and it also involves other clinicians. And so how do we help other clinicians who may not always think about employment? All right, but how do we help them as well? See, broaden their lens to make sure that employment is part of their discussion with the individual. Carol: When you talk to you about that partnership with the Department of that transitional assistance, I don't have a good feel exactly for what all that department does. But can you talk a little bit about that and how you have cultivated that? Like what is we didn't have a department that was named that. So I'm not understanding exactly what they what they do. Toni: Yeah. So I'm not sure what's related to other states. So I apologize. But they are. The Department of Transitional Assistance provides residents with cash benefits, food assistance and workforce training opportunities. We're really excited to partner with the Department of Transitional Assistance on our Empowered to Employ program. Gotcha. It's a group that traditionally has not always seen individuals with disabilities, and yet we know that individuals with disabilities are everywhere. All right. So we sat down and said, look, the individuals that we work with are using your services. We are the experts in the disability arena. Let's partner together. You are the experts in benefits. You are the experts in food security issues. You are the experts in supporting individuals with food assistance and other economic features. Let's combine our efforts, and that has really been an eye opener for both DTA and for MRC. And I say that for MRC side. Traditionally we don't always see individuals as part of a family, all right. That they too are caregivers. And so a lot of individuals that we are servicing through our DTA project are single parents. So it has enriched our consumers, it has reached our staff, let me say, to really appreciate the challenges people have that are also caregivers themselves with a disability. Right. And it has helped to because they're seeing something incredibly positive when people get employed. All right. So it helps them also believe that more is possible for their individuals. So I think it's been a really enriching partnership and we are in the process of expanding that partnership. It's been so successful. Carol: That is brilliant because if you think about it, you want to look for a job, but you're also you have these basic needs like. Toni: Childcare. Carol: Food. You know, I need food and I need childcare and I need all this other stuff. And so it's kind of this really revolving circle. And if you can't, you've got to get it all met together so that that all is in sync. That's right. So if somebody was wanting to reach out to that because we it was our Department of Health and Human Services and Minnesota would be that agency that did that and that kind of the SNAP and TANF and all these different programs. How would somebody reach out to get that relationship going? If you were giving some advice to your colleagues out there, how could they go about trying to engage that partnership? Toni: So, you know, I would be lying to tell you that it was not something that happened easily. But at the same token, it was about relationship building. That's what everything is about. So it was really at that time the commissioner myself talking about where our shared individuals that we service were right how to think about that differently and not being so siloed in our roles and in our departments, but really looking at what I'm calling collaboration. Right. And we had more in common than we had. That was different. And so that really, really allowed us to really think about let's start a pilot project where we're working together, where we're looking at actually having a VRC in a DTA office. And this was pre-COVID. All right. So our VR counselor actually sat and was headquartered in a DTA office to start building relationships, and that then grew over time. And that's really, I think how you build partnerships is that you start building relationships, you start thinking about the shared individual that we all care about and serve and what's best for them. And I have to say, DTA has been a great, great partner. Carol: That's smart. I mean, that was really smart, starting with that VR counselor in their office. Good for you. So I know partnership is definitely a theme and you took some lessons you've learned to help you secure. You get a Disability Innovation Fund grant from RSA in 2021. So what's the premise of that grant you wrote, I think you had called it Next Gen. It was something kind of snazzy like that. Toni: Well, that's what we want to be snazzy. I think VR has a rap of not being innovative and that's not true. We are incredibly passionate here at MRC. Every staff person is incredibly passionate about the work they do, and yet we also have to translate it so people think differently about us, that we are innovative, that we do really look at servicing the individual and the family in a really robust way. So next gen is to serve what we're calling 18 to 30 year olds. All right. It is really about translating what we do to their needs. It's again, focusing on the team approach so that if somebody does not feel comfortable working as part of a team, they would not use next gen. But this is a very much of a team effort. The thinking behind this is that there would be a benefit specialist up front, there would be a counselor, there would be a peer mentor, someone with lived experience themselves. That's part of the team that could help an individual. They would be somebody that also understands outreach and the importance of outreach and the resources in the community. And the thinking is that the youth or the young adult is we're calling that person 18 to 30 really is part of the circle of that team and they will decide who they want to work with at that point in time. It doesn't always have to be the VR counselor that's the case manager or the care person that's coordinating efforts. So it's really putting the young adult in charge. And what we're hearing with youth and young adults, they want to feel like they're dictating what happens and they should. It's their life, right? So it's really putting the young adult in the center and really making sure that they're driving the ship. So we're very excited. And next gen, it does mean thinking very differently around VR services. It does mean, again, internships, apprenticeships, working in the community very differently. But we're very excited about this opportunity....
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VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Everything is Bigger in Texas- Learn How Texas Leverages SSA Reimbursement
06/12/2022
VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Everything is Bigger in Texas- Learn How Texas Leverages SSA Reimbursement
Welcome to the 15th episode of the Manager Minute. Joining Carol Pankow in the studio today is Cheryl Fuller, VR Division Director with the Texas Workforce Commission and also incoming CSAVR President. Today we will talk about Social Security's VR Cost Reimbursement program, which was authorized in 1981. The purpose of that program is to make State VR services more readily available to SSA beneficiaries with disabilities and to generate savings for the Social Security Trust Fund for SSDI beneficiaries and the General Revenue Fund for SSI recipients. Learn how the Texas Workforce Commission uses technology and staff to maximize and track Social Security Reimbursements to help support their programs. You can find out more about VRTAC-QM on the web at: VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Everything is Bigger in Texas- Learn How Texas Leverages SSA Reimbursement {Music} Speaker: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management. Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host, Carol Pankow. Carol: Welcome to the manager minute. I am so fortunate to have Cheryl Fuller, V.R. Division Director with the Texas Workforce Commission and also incoming CSAVR president, joining me in the studio today. And Cheryl, there certainly have been some very tragic things happening in your state and most recently the Uvalde School shooting. And my thoughts and prayers are with everyone affected. I know VR is typically filled with people with a lot of heart. We're kind of people people. So in light of all that's happening, how are you and your staff holding up? Cheryl: First of all, thank you for thinking about us. This is something very much at the forefront of our minds and it's really on our hearts. And we have a field office in Uvalde about a block and a half from the school. And so it's a small community. Our staff knows everyone. I grew up in a small town myself, and I know just how wonderful it is to grow up in a small town with the support and the relationships, and that will be important for them going forward. And our agency, along with other agencies, immediately looked at what we can do, how can we help our community? Because it is our community. And we're looking at a couple of things. We're looking at some group skills training later this summer to help some of our students get ready to go back to school. And how can we do that? How can we help them think about going back to school and process that and think about some positive things that they look forward to about why they're in school, their career and growing up and getting ready to transition. And of course, we know adults also may need us. So we're redoubling our efforts to make sure that our community knows that our services are there to help them. If a few months from now they begin to have conditions that are preventing them from keeping their job. We're here to help, and we know that if we all do what we can, we will help our community work through this. Carol: Well, I'm really glad you're at the helm because you bring that heart to it. That has just broken my heart. I'm thinking about you all. I'm praying for you guys every day. And I'm glad you're in that leadership role there to bring that to your staff and to your customers and that thought and thinking ahead for the next school year. That is so smart, so wise. Cheryl: Well, that's our staff on the ground and it's our agency executive director. We're so fortunate to have an executive director that cares very much about our division, our programs, our customers and our staff, and was on the ground meeting with our staff and immediately asking what we can do and helping us be creative in thinking how can we help? We can do more. And so we're really fortunate to have. Carol: I love that. That is so great to hear. Cheryl, I've known you since you started at the agency. And in fact, I don't think you probably remember this, but I was actually sitting behind you at your first CSAVR conference, and I remember thinking, Who is that lady? You were so sharp and you would ask questions like, I'm like, This gal is super intelligent. Like, Where's she come from? Because you were new to VR and you came out of the other side of the world. But I loved it because you participated right away and you've accomplished so much in your tenure. I've really always looked up to you and your leadership, not only in your agency but in the VR field as a whole. And so congrats on that new position as the incoming president of CSAVR. I know you're going to be spectacular at that job. Cheryl: Thank you, Carol. You know, I've always looked up to you. In fact, we were following you around, as I recall, when you were president, as you tried to lead our association and lead our partnership with our federal agency to get more flexibility, which we so needed to serve students with disabilities. So I was in the group behind you going, Yeah, what Carol says. Carol: So you are hilarious. Well, I never got to be CSAVR President, I was the NCSAB president. CSAVR Executive Committee. Cheryl: Yeah, that's right. Carol: I did a lot of that work through NCSAB, but you know, I was on both groups and so wow, definitely promoting those flexibilities and I'm glad they finally came through. Cheryl: Well, thank goodness for your leadership there and your leadership with administrative changes like prior approval, I thought how has Carol already figured all of this out? And we're still trying to spell prior approval, so. Carol: Oh, you are very sweet. Yeah, well, I'm still working on it to this day in my new role. Yes. But today we're going to talk about Social Security's VR cost reimbursement program, which was really authorized back in 1981. Right. And the purpose of that program is to make State VR services more readily available to SSI beneficiaries with disabilities and to generate savings for the Social Security Trust Fund for SSDI beneficiaries and the General Revenue Fund for SSI recipients. And so under that cost reimbursement program, the Social Security Administration will pay state VR agencies compensation in the form of reimbursement when beneficiaries served by State VR agencies enter the workforce and achieve nine continuous months of earnings. And those earnings must be at or above substantial gainful activity, and usually it's just referred to as SGA. I know for me that program income was really a game changer when I was at Minnesota Blind. I mean, it actually gave us some breathing room and we were able to do some really creative things and invest in. Our older individuals who are blind program. And so what I was thinking about who to talk to for this I of course I called Courtney. She was my person. I'm like, Courtney, what are the states out there that are doing really well with this? And you were at the top of the list. So when you look at those reimbursement levels, I know your state is out in the lead and being really efficient in getting every possible dollar. So let's dig into this. Can you give us a little picture about VR in Texas? Like what's your annual grant amount? Kind of how many staff do you have? How many customers do you serve? Paint a little picture for our listeners. Cheryl: Sure. Our annual grant amount has been growing every year rather significantly. It's grown 23% since 2017. Wow. So our annual grant allotment is at about 300 million now. We're second to our sister state in California. Of course, California is bigger. And so we have certainly, as we've seen our grant grow, we are seeing it grow in significant part because of our population growth in Texas. We are expected to, if we haven't already surpassed the 30 million person point in Texas population, we were 27.4 in 2016 and we are now well into 30 million. In fact, I think we were leading the country in numeric growth from 2010 to 2020. Wow. Our state is growing in terms of population. Our economy is remaining strong and our grant is growing. I'll tell you our annual budget. So our grants are of course for two years, but our annual budget this year is about $276 million at the DSU level. And so when it comes to the number of folks that we're serving, if we just think about participants, which is how we now consider a number of customers serve in the most specific sense. So somebody with an IP who is also receiving services, last year it was about 65.5 thousand, so 65,514. To be specific, it's running 65 to 70000 a year is how many customers we're serving. We're doing that with a division that has about 744 positions. The vast majority of those are in the field. About 1663 of those positions are in the field. Almost 700 of them are counselors or transition VR counselors who work with students and youth, about 350 rehabilitation assistants to support them. And then we have other direct service delivery staff like our VR teachers, for example. We also have a residential training facility for individuals who are legally blind. Mark Driscoll Rehabilitation Center is in that direct service delivery group. And then of course we have regional and management unit staff also providing support oversight to our staff delivering services. So that's a picture of our system. Carol: That's a bunch. I was doing the quick math, so I was looking at your 700 counselors divided by those 65,000 people. So you're sitting around 93 customers on average on a caseload. Cheryl: On average. Carol: Absolutely. I just have to ask, have you seen any changes as a result of the pandemic with individuals coming in starting to experience the long COVID or anything like that? Cheryl: You know, we've seen just a handful. We have seen some. It's not big numbers. And I think as individuals experiencing long COVID work through what that is, what it means to them, whether it represents an impediment to their ability to keep a job or get a job or advance in their job. I think we may see more of that. And right now, it still seems like it's quite a new field of study. And these folks are trying to figure out where their resources are and how they're going to work through these symptoms that stay with them for a long time. Carol: Yeah, absolutely. I'm just thinking that might end up coming your way given all that huge growth in population, for sure. That definitely is. People were all moving to Texas. I see it on Facebook all the time. I've had several friends moved down to Texas, so I get it. Cheryl: Well, it's hot here right now, so they might be questioning that decision. It's supposed to be I think we're supposed to get to 107 over the weekend, so. Carol: ]\Yeah, I saw that on the news. It's looking blistering, definitely. So tell me about what resources you've been able to put into your SSA reimbursement like both people and technology? Cheryl: Well, we have had, I would say on the technology side, a game changer over ten years ago, and that is using the Morrow Ticket Tracker system. This system significantly improved not only our efficiency, but the number of claims we were able to successfully process. And for those of you who don't know, it's called the Vocational Rehabilitation Ticket to Work Reimbursement Tracker Program or Tracker. What it does is it tracks and processes traditional reimbursements and ticket to work payments. What the system does. For us as it collects data from our agency case management system. It connects that with external data, which is still internal to us in our agency, which is unemployment insurance, wage records, state verification and exchange information, other types of information. And what it does is it identifies cases that may be ready to be submitted as a claim, may be ready to be submitted as a claim is really important because that's where the other resource we have comes in that is so incredibly valuable to us. We have two dedicated staff in our finance division at the DSA level, and this is all these two staff. Do they use the systems that we have, including Ticket Tracker? They identify claims that may be eligible for us to submit for reimbursement and then they go over those claims with a fine tooth comb because they know the top reasons why a claim may be denied. And, so just because it pops up in that system doesn't mean you just send it in. You go over it with a fine tooth comb, and then they submit it for reimbursement, and then they follow through and then they double check payments when we receive them. And if they think we received a low payment and we can make a case for more of a reimbursement, they submit that for consideration, the level of rigor that these two staff apply to this process is why we have such a low denial rate and why we're able to be so successful. So I call them our secret sauce. They are fantastic. They also coach our counselors in how to help a customer with a ticket assignment. And so what to do with the ticket assignment? Our counselors can reach out to them for help. They're sleuths. They'll look at possible match and say, Wait a minute, I think this date of birth or season, we might need to make a correction here. And so they'll identify that and work with our staff, if necessary, to make data corrections. They are just incredible. And the combination of those two things has helped us be quite successful in submitting claims and receiving those reimbursements. Carol: I'm really glad you mentioned both of those because I remember going to a conference, I think it was like in 2013 and there were poster sessions up and they had the moral ticket tracker and I'm going, What is this? Because we were doing this old pencil paper, we were getting maybe 400,000 a year or something. And once we got the tracker in, it was not a huge investment. I was super surprised it was a low dollar amount. We never went under $1,000,000 after that. We were a small agency. I'm like, What is happening was amazing, but I think you're right. Having a secret source like you had your two women that were your secret source. So I had Courtney. She was our secret. She was amazing at that. You know, I think you have to dedicate some resource. And I know there are definitely some agencies struggling right now, and I know there are a number of folks that are not actually submitting for reimbursement right now. They just haven't been able to land and figure that out. But those are two important pieces to the equation. Cheryl: Very important and sharing. And I would tell you that because I asked them in preparing for this podcast, I talked to them and I said, Sherri and Annie, what would you recommend? And they said, Well, first ticket tracker. Carol: Yeah. Cheryl: And second, check every claim go through every detail of the fine tooth comb. Carol: Got it. Good advice. That is good. Yes. So I know you've had some recent struggles with your SSA reimbursement and I understood some of the rules changed. You had some things that well, the rules change and it's impacted the amount of the recovery that you've been able to get. So can you talk a little more about that? Cheryl: I can talk a little bit about it, and then I will make sure not to get out of my depth, because I did talk to Sherri and Annie about this extensively and it reminded me all over again why they're experts and why I'm doing what I'm doing. And so what I would say, kind of overall, as with any program rules, over time, SSA makes adjustments to submission, how we submit what is accepted. And so it's very important that we as well as all the other agencies that are participating in this program, stay on top of those changes and understand that our sister agencies at the federal level will also be making adjustments, and some of those may take some time for them and us. And in the meanwhile, that affects the rate at which you may be getting your claims paid. It may affect whether you're getting your claims paid. And one of the things that specifically has changed over time is what is accepted is proof of employment, particularly when somebody is working in another state. Right. So what used to be accepted is verification of that is no longer. And so we used to be able to show the information collected in our case management system as a valid submission for reimbursement. Now we need something more rigorous. And so we're working through how we connect with our Swiss data, because otherwise we would continue to lose valuable reimbursements for people working in other states, like a pharmacist in California. They could see it, but we needed that proof so that that claim could be paid. And. So it's really being and VR professionals are fantastic at this, but it's being on top of changes and being flexible to deal with them and really trying to work in partnership with our federal agencies to make sure we're all understanding what is required and doing our best to achieve that. Carol: You might have to drive out to California and take a picture of that pharmacist, if that would be allowed. Cheryl: I know, I know. I thought, man, what a fantastic outcome for VR, though, right? Carol: Absolutely. That is incredible. Oh, gosh. I knew those changes had happened, but it was after I left, so I wasn't sure the nuances. So that makes some sense to me. Definitely. So I know you also had something really unique happen with your legislature and your SSA reimbursement, so tell us a little about that. Cheryl: Well, in 2016, September 1st of 2016, our legacy agency, the Department of Assistive and Rehabilitative Services, was abolished, and the programs in our legacy agency were transferred by the legislature, either to the Texas Workforce Commission, which is where VR, older, blind, our Randolph Sheppard program, for example, all went. And then the other programs went to the Health and Human Services Commission that included our blind children's program. Our program for those that have traumatic brain or spinal cord injury, are deaf and hard of hearing services that we had, as well as independent living. So independent living part B, part C that went to Health and Human Services and they became the designated state entity for those programs. What we had done historically, though, at our legacy agency is that we had used our program income to expand and enhance our independent living services programs, including older lines. It was just an incredible value to us at our legacy agency that those dollars, because you can use your program income to support other programs funded by the Rehabilitation Act, that those dollars could really strengthen important programs in independent living. And so when we transferred to TWC from DAAS, the Legislature appropriated some of our program income back to the Health and Human Services Commission for continued support for those independent living services programs. That's really important because as we have changes in agency structure, we want to maintain the quality of service that we're providing to our customers, whether they're VR, old or blind, independent living, whatever the case may be. And this is not something that VR agencies may be accustomed to. We know you cannot appropriate vocational rehabilitation grant funds outside of the agency. Right. The VR agency. But with program income, the statute says the state. And so the legislature may appropriate that outside of the agency and did so, $8.5 million per year is appropriated in our appropriations bill pattern to the Health and Human Services Commission to provide continued support to those independent living services programs. Carol: So how does that relate then to how much you get in program income? Wow. Cheryl: We collect about $20 Million a year in program income. We have had years where it was higher...
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